A young and ambitious writer named Jerome David Salinger set his goals very high very early in his career. He almost desperately wished to publish his early stories in The New Yorker magazine, the pinnacle, he felt, of America's literary world. But such was not to be for several long years and the length of one long world war. The New Yorker, whose tastes in literary matters were and remain notoriously prim and fickle, was not quite ready for this brash and over-confident newcomer with the cynical worldview and his habit of slangy dialogue. But other magazines were quick to recognize a new talent, a fresh voice at a time when the world verged on madness. Story magazine, an esteemed and influential small circulation journal devoted exclusively to the art of the short story and still active and respected today, was the first publication to publish the name J.D. Salinger and the story "The Young Folks" in 1940, an impressive view of New York's cocktail society and two young people talking past one another, their conversation almost completely meaningless and empty. His next short story was published in a college journal, The University of Kansas City Review, "Go See Eddie," a tale of quiet menace as an unsavory male character gradually turns up the pressure on a young lady to see a man named Eddie. Also published in 1940, the story is notable for the backstory that is omitted - a technique that Hemingway used to great effect. Four years later toward the end of Salinger's war experience saw the publication of "Once A Week Won't Kill You," again in Story magazine. Ostensibly about a newly minted soldier trying to tell an aging aunt he is going off to war, some may see the story as a metaphor for preparing one's family for the possibility of wartime death. Three Early Stories (Illustrated) is the first legitimately published book by J.D. Salinger in more than 50 years. Devault-Graves Digital Editions, a publisher that specializes in reprinting the finest in American period literature, is proud to bring you this anthology by one of America's most innovative and inspiring authors.

Three Early Stories

Literature & Fiction

Salinger, J. D.

United States

DeVault-Graves Agency

Jack Kerouac shot to literary fame in 1957 with the publication of his iconic book of the Beat Generation, On the Road. Kerouac was termed "King of the Beats," a mantle he was entirely uncomfortable with. Along with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and several others forged a new literary voice and attitude - it was a movement that often mocked and challenged the American status quo. Prior to the publication of On the Road, Kerouac had written several novels and poems. With the almost overnight success of On the Road, publishers clamored for his other books and a Kerouac industry was born. Within only a few years of being heralded as the voice of a new generation, however, Kerouac was aging, severely alcoholic, and suffering from a death of the spirit. Arguably his finest post-On the Road novel, Big Sur captures Kerouac (here named Jack Duluoz) trying to escape the clamor of beatnik adulation by retreating to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's peaceful cabin in Big Sur. What begins as a pastoral regeneration descends into a personal hell when Kerouac suffers an alcoholic breakdown. Written in Kerouac's elegantly poetic and rapid-fire prose, Big Sur is both beautiful and horrific, a clear-eyed recollection of facing down his many demons and willing himself to survive them.

Big Sur

KEROUAC,JACK

Contemporary

Graceland Too, including its Elvis-obsessed owner, was a collective and organic piece of Deep South folk art. Paul B. MacLeod was the eccentric dreamer who kept his Elvis attraction open to the public round-the-clock and year-round from 1990 until his sudden death in 2014. The location of these unforgettable curiosities was 200 E. Gholson Avenue in Holly Springs, Miss. Darrin Devault and Tom Graves have captured a series of images from the infamous roadside attraction in this photography book. Some of the items they photographed were rare (early Sun and RCA vinyl records), some made in China (velvet paintings and assorted bric-a-brac), and some handmade (an over-the-top "Jailhouse Rock" inspired electric chair). "Paul MacLeod and Graceland Too were one of the great roadside attractions, and for the price of five dollars you were taken into Paul's world, a world dominated by Elvis Presley," Graves said. "From a visitor's point of view the arrangement of all the Elvis items may have seemed chaotic. But in Paul's world, in Paul's logic, it made perfect sense. In our book we try to help it make sense to everyone." Graceland Too is now gone. It is largely a memory. The gates have been closed, the windows shuttered, the building likely to be razed to make way for something more profitable but not likely to be anywhere near as interesting. The contents of Graceland Too were all sold to a single buyer at an auction where dozens of potential buyers were left in the cold along with their dreams of buying pieces, artifacts of the unusual attraction. The book Graceland Too Revisited remains the historical photographic record of a place and time never to be repeated.

Graceland Too Revisited

Reference

In 1959 Avon Books published Jack Kerouac's tender look back at his high school years in Lowell, Massachusetts, Maggie Cassidy. One particular passage in the book, written in the form of a letter, contained certain thermo-nuclear profanities that weren't widely accepted in literature, even Beat literature, of that time period. As soon as Maggie Cassidy hit the shelves it upset bookstore owners and book distributors enough that the book was pulled, the passages rewritten, and a new, more politely correct version was issued and republished over the decades to come. The original manuscript has not been republished until Devault-Graves learned of the original version that Kerouac is said to have fought for before the decision was made to excise and rewrite those passages. Devault-Graves now proudly restores the original novel, complete and uncensored. Book description: In Jack Kerouac's teenage years his friends gave him a nickname that was prescient and stuck with him throughout his life--Memory Babe. Kerouac was able to conjure up scenes from his childhood and adolescence that astounded his friends with their precision and detail. This talent was to serve him well as a novelist, enabling him to recall long segments of conversation that he could instantly pound out on his typewriter. Maggie Cassidy is one of Kerouac's most nostalgic recollections of his past, focusing on his first true love when he was a high school senior and a local star athlete. Filled with the sweet innocence of youth and the daily heartbreak of quarrels and unfulfilled sexual yearnings, Kerouac employs his stylishly Beat observations toward the bygone era of pre-World War II Lowell, Massachusetts, when he was torn between the companionship of his gang of buddies and the sirens' call of the opposite sex. In addition to his romance with the title character, Kerouac is especially evocative in reproducing the slangy teen-speak of the late 1930s and in detailing how he went from a precocious local boy in Lowell to an exclusive New York prep school where he was to later meet the brilliant young men who would begin the Beat Movement.

Maggie Cassidy (Original Manuscript)

Award-winning author and journalist Tom Graves in "Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, &amp; Other Charmers &amp; Dreamers" collects the best of his long-form journalism and profiles as well as his in-depth interviews with a variety of curious personalities. The lead piece is "My Afternoon with Louise Brooks" about Graves's encounter in 1982 with the reclusive silent film legend Louise Brooks. He was the last journalist ever to sit bedside with Miss Brooks, who allowed very few people into her life. Also included are Graves's 1979 sit down with the king of Southern grit lit, Harry Crews, his discovery of the first Elvis impersonator, his search with the help of Quentin Tarantino to find actress Linda Haynes, who had vanished from Hollywood. Included are also Graves's in-depth question and answer interviews with: Frank Zappa, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, Lee Mavers of the cult band the La's, and Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Some of Graves's best essays are also part of this anthology: his piece on the Sex Pistols in Memphis, an apology for biographer Albert Goldman, a revisit of Woodstock, and more. Tom Graves is known for his award-winning biography of bluesman Robert Johnson, "Crossroads," and the acclaimed grit lit novel Pullers. In addition he was the Consulting Producer for the film Best of Enemies about the 1968 Buckley-Vidal debates and was the publisher and editor with Darrin Devault of the book Buckley vs. Vidal.

Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers

Biographies & Memoirs

GRAVES, Tom

Arts & Literature

The tiny Sun studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, may not have looked like much from the outside, but inside musical miracles were being performed daily by its enigmatic owner, Sam Phillips. Phillips began more or less as a talent scout for other record labels, such as the legendary Chess Records in Chicago. However, after discovering a wealth of talent in his own backyard in the Mid-South area, Phillips began his own record label-Sun Records-with an emblematic rising sun and rooster logo. A white man who loved and understood African-American music, Phillips recorded soon-to-be blues icons such as Howlin' Wolf, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King. A seismic shift occurred during one session in 1951 when Phillips recorded "Rocket 88" with Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner. That shift was to become known as rock and roll. A shy white boy named Elvis Presley came into the studio to record a song for his mother's birthday. Phillips recognized something in the young man, and a moment of silliness in the studio ruptured into the first record of the future King of Rock &amp; Roll, "That's All Right." Elvis shot to stardom; Sun Records didn't stop there. Hot on his heels came Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. However, there wasn't a day that the studio wasn't searching for other artists, other hits. Sun Records: An Oral History (2nd edition) brings to readers the voices of the pillars of Sun Records, the artists, producers and engineers who made the place tick. Thomas (the first hit-maker for Sun), Scotty Moore, Rosco Gordon, Little Milton Campbell, Billy Lee Riley, producer and musician Roland Janes, producer Cowboy Jack Clement and others all tell their inimitable stories about the making of a music empire, the label that put rock and roll on the world map. Music journalist and critic John Floyd has woven together dozens of priceless stories and anecdotes with his own insightful and artful narrative to make this book definitive for anyone interested in Sun Records or the birth and rise of rock and roll. For example, there are firsthand accounts of the early Elvis sessions by Moore, Riley's own account of his legendary drunken rampage in the Sun studio, and a transcript of the back-and-forth hell and damnation conversation between a reluctant Lewis and Phillips just prior to the recording of "Great Balls of Fire." This second edition updates the masterful original book which was critically acclaimed and considered one of the canon of must-have music books.

Sun Records: An Oral History

Arts & Photography

Floyd, John

Music

Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal exploded onto the political scene during the presidential conventions of 1968 when they debated 11 times on ABC News as a part of the network's "unconventional convention coverage." The debates were fiery and combative and they infamously blew up at each other during their penultimate debate in Chicago. The debates, the subject of the new documentary film "Best of Enemies," have not been shown or transcribed in their entirety since the original airings in 1968. The Devault-GravesAgency -- the publisher that made world news in 2014 by publishing "Three Early Stories," the first J.D. Salinger book in 50 years -- exclusively brings you the complete, uncensored Buckley-Vidal transcripts in all their highly readable glory. The book also features an eloquent and informative introduction by one of the directors of "Best of Enemies," author Robert Gordon. This book will appeal to the legion of fans and readers of both Buckley and Vidal. Students of debate will find no better guide to the art of verbal fencing than Buckley vs. Vidal. Libraries throughout the U.S. will want Buckley vs. Vidal as the official record of the most infamous debates of the last half-century by two of the most important social arbiters of the era. Buckley vs. Vidal will be a textbook of style and substance to any aspiring debater, or those already in the fray.

Buckley vs. Vidal: The Historic 1968 ABC News Debates

History

BUCKLEY, William F.

VIDAL,GORE

World

Gregory Corso was born on March 26, 1930 in New York City. His first book of poetry was published by City Lights Press in 1955.

Gasoline

Corso, Gregory

Poetry

A young and ambitious writer named Jerome David Salinger set his goals very high very early in his career. He almost desperately wished to publish his early stories in The New Yorker magazine, the pinnacle, he felt, of America's literary world. But such was not to be for several long years and the length of one long world war. The New Yorker, whose tastes in literary matters were and remain notoriously prim and fickle, was not quite ready for this brash and over-confident newcomer with the cynical worldview and his habit of slangy dialogue. But other magazines were quick to recognize a new talent, a fresh voice at a time when the world verged on madness. Story magazine, an esteemed and influential small circulation journal devoted exclusively to the art of the short story and still active and respected today, was the first publication to publish the name J.D. Salinger and the story "The Young Folks" in 1940, an impressive view of New York's cocktail society and two young people talking past one another, their conversation almost completely meaningless and empty. His next short story was published in a college journal, The University of Kansas City Review, "Go See Eddie," a tale of quiet menace as an unsavory male character gradually turns up the pressure on a young lady to see a man named Eddie. Also published in 1940, the story is notable for the backstory that is omitted - a technique that Hemingway used to great effect. Four years later toward the end of Salinger's war experience saw the publication of "Once A Week Won't Kill You," again in Story magazine. Ostensibly about a newly minted soldier trying to tell an aging aunt he is going off to war, some may see the story as a metaphor for preparing one's family for the possibility of wartime death. Three Early Stories (Illustrated), published in 2014 by Devault-Graves Digital Editions, is the first legitimately published book by J.D. Salinger in more than 50 years. Its publication was a landmark in recent publishing history. Of particular interest to scholars and lovers of literature, these three tales mark the earlier period in the development of Salinger as a published writer, taking him from his first story sale to his life-changing experiences in World War II. This new Scholastic Edition of Three Early Stories, prepared by accomplished writer and English professor Michael Compton, includes a full study guide intended for use in high school and college classrooms. The study guide includes endnotes, discussion questions, writing prompts, essays and a Salinger timeline.

Three Early Stories (Scholastic Edition)

Weegee not only captured the gritty underbelly of New York City in his explosive photographs, but he lived it as well. This long out-of-print autobiography, brought back with complete and unabridged text by Devault-Graves Digital Editions, was written toward the end of Weegee's life before he was the photographic legend he is today. Here he tells the story of how an impoverished Jewish immigrant named Arthur Fellig from Zlothev, Austria, came to grips with one of the toughest cities in the world and made it his own. In wisecracking prose that is a match for his unblinking ferocity behind the camera, Weegee recounts his days of taking tintypes of kids on ponies and how this knowledge of the streets and neighborhoods of New York led to him being the first on the scene of the city's every murder, disaster, and heartbreak. In Weegee: The Autobiography the author candidly and without reserve tells readers about documenting the grisly street executions by Murder, Inc., tenements up in flames, child killers, lovers in the back rows of movie theaters, and the sexual misadventures of streetwalkers, pimps, and transsexuals, all in a voice that had seen it all and loved it all. Fans of Weegee's photography will not want to miss his story-told in the way only Weegee himself could tell. The new Devault-Graves Digital Editions version of Weegee: The Autobiography contains a wealth of new material for readers. An original Afterword by author and critic Ed Ward and extensive annotations and endnotes are included.

Weegee: The Autobiography

Fellig, Arthur

Photography & Video

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