Books by Robert Penn Warren

Louisiana governor Willie Stark's obsession with political power leads to the ultimate corruption of his gubernatorial administration, in the story of the rise and fall of a Southern politician and demagogue in the 1930s. Simultaneous. Movie tie-in. (A Columbia Pictures film, written & directed by Steven Zaillian, releasing Winter 2005, starring Sean Penn)

Louisiana governor Willie Stark's obsession with political power leads to the ultimate corruption of his gubernatorial administration, in the story of the rise and fall of a Southern politician and demagogue in the 1930s. Reprint. (A Columbia Pictures film, written & directed by Steven Zaillian, releasing Fall 2006, starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, & Anthony Hopkins) (Historical Fiction)

Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize and heavily inspired by the life of Governor Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana, ALL THE KING'S MAN chronicles the career of Willie Stark, an extremely charismatic but corrupt populist Southern politician, as narrated by his considerably more conscience-ridden publicity man, Jack Burden. Considered a landmark book in American literature, it was adapted for a 1958 TV film as well as a 2005 movie starring Sean Penn as Willie and Jude Law as Jack.

Set in the '30s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power. The model for 1996's best-selling novel, Primary Colors, and as relevant today as it was fifty years ago, All the King's Men is one of the classics of American literature.

Poetry and prose illustrate the major themes and currents of American literature from the 17th century.

Poetry and prose illustrate the major themes and currents of American literature from the 17th century.

Poems, drama, and fiction combined with critical commentary reflect five hundred years of literary achievement.

A proud and determined Southern girl struggles to escape her tyrannical father.

A collection of poems inspired by the life and writings of the famous naturalist.

Amantha Starr, born and raised by a doting father on a Kentucky plantation in the years before the Civil War, is the heroine of this powerfully dramatic novel. At her father's death Amantha learns that her mother was a slave and that she, too, is to be sold into servitude. What follows is a vast panorama of one of the most turbulent periods of American history as seen through the eyes of this star-crossed young woman. Amantha soon finds herself in New Orleans, where she spends the war years with Hamish Bond, a slave trader. At war's end, she marries Tobias Sears, a Union officer and Emersonian idealist. Despite sporadic periods of contentment; Amantha finds life with Tobias trying, and she is haunted still by her tangled past. Oh, who am I? she asks at the beginning of the novel. Only after many years, after achieving a hard-won wisdom and maturity, does she begin to understand the answer to that question. Band of Angels puts on ready display Robert Penn Warren's prodigious gifts. First published in 1955, it is one of the most searing and vivid fictional accounts of the Civil War era ever written.

An acclaimed poet and novelist, Robert Penn Warren continues to add to an impressive career and body of work with this volume of expansive and vibrant verse.

Presents a definitive collection of thirty-four short stories by Jesse Stuart, with brief introductions and commentary on the tales.

The significantly revised version of Brother to Dragons appeared in 1979, twenty-six years after the original. It is, Warren wrote, "in some important senses, a new work". Told in the distinct voices of characters long dead and now gathered at an unspecified place and time, the poem recalls events leading to and resulting from the 1811 murder of a young slave by Thomas Jefferson's nephew. "R.P.W". is the narrator of the versified tale, whose poignant ending brings not only reconciliation among the ghostly figures but healing for Warren's persona as well.

A narrative poem based upon the heroic life of the great chief of the Nez Perce Indians, is told partly in the first person by Joseph, partly in the voice of the poet.

James A. Grimshaw, Jr., brings together for the first time more than 350 letters exchanged by two scholars who altered the way literature is taught in this country. The selected letters focus on the development of their five major textbooks - the rationale for selections, the details involved in obtaining permissions and preparing indexes, and the demands of meeting deadlines. More important, these letters reveal their attitudes toward literature, teaching, and scholarship. Providing insight into two of the most influential literary minds of this century, these letters show two men who were deeply involved in research and writing, and who were committed to a life of travel, conversation, and learning.

In this indispensable volume, John Burt has assembled every poem (with the exception of "Brother to Dragons") ever published by Robert Penn Warren, the first Poet Laureate of the United States.

The distinguished poet, novelist, and critic offers two personal meditations on the interrelationships among American democracy, conceptual and actual, the making of art, and the diminishing notion of selfhood crucial to both.

Gathers selected poems about the Civil War, the seafaring life, and the search for meaning and briefly discusses Melville's poetic style.

Gathers selected poems about the Civil War, the seafaring life, and the search for meaning and briefly discusses Melville's poetic style.

While there has been a growing scholarly interest in the use of grotesque imagery in art and literature, very little attention has been given to the religious and theological significance of such imagery. This fascinating book attempts to redress that neglect by exploring the religious meaning of the grotesque and its importance as a subject for theological inquiry.
The book begins with the debate over both the definition of the grotesque and the theoretical approaches to understanding its meaning and importance for the late twentieth century. It discusses the theories of Walter Kayser, Mikhael Bakhtin, Geoffrey Galt Harpham, and Ewa Kuryluk and their relevance for a theological approach to interpreting the grotesque.
The inquiry continues with the treatment of particular artists, writers, and their works. Essays focus on major grotesque works in Western art, medieval female imagery and the grotesque, the significance of Bosch's use of the grotesque, the meaning of the ugly and the beautiful in Christian art, Shakespeare's use of the grotesque in "Hamlet," Toni Morrison's use of grotesque imagery in "Beloved", and the examination of the work of the twentieth-century artist Francis Bacon. The volume ends with a previously unpublished work by poet laureate Robert Penn Warren. Contributors include: James Luther Adams, John W. Cook, Susan Everson, Roger Hazelton, Margaret Miles, Yasuhiro Ogawa, Wolfgang Stechow, Robert Penn Warren, and Wilson Yates.

Warren's poems reveal his sensitivity to commonplace experiences and scenes.

In 1979 Robert Penn Warren returned to his native Todd County, Kentucky, to attend ceremonies in honor of another native son, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, whose United States citizenship had just been restored, ninety years after his death, by a special act of Congress. From that nostalgic journey grew this reflective essay on the tragic career of Jefferson Davis - "not a modern man in any sense of the word but a conservative called to manage what was, in one sense, a revolution". Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back is also a meditation by one of our wisest and most beloved men of letters on the ironies of American history and the paradoxes of the modern South.

Portrait of the tormented liberator by America's first poet laureate.

Offers a critical introduction to the novels and short stories of Katherine Anne Porter, tracing the biographical and thematic development of her works.

Offers a critical introduction to the novels and short stories of Katherine Anne Porter, tracing the biographical and thematic development of her works.

In this book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer explores the manifold ways in which the Civil War changed the United States forever. He confronts its costs, not only human (six hundred thousand men killed) and economic (beyond reckoning) but social and psychological. He touches on popular misconceptions, including some concerning Abraham Lincoln and the issue of slavery. The war in all its facets "grows in our consciousness", arousing complex emotions and leaving a "gallery of great human images for our contemplation".

Essays discuss Hawthorne, Twain, Conrad, Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, Whittier, Frost, and Coleridge.

This volume includes selections from all of the poet's previous poetic works and fifty new poems, never before published, to introduce this collection.

This volume includes selections from all of the poet's previous poetic works and fifty new poems, never before published, to introduce this collection.

Warren's first novel set in the tobacco wars of Kentucky in the early 20th century.

Deals with the personal stories and relationships of people, native and outsiders, exploited and exploiters, caught up in revolution, struggles for survival and power, and capitalist progress in a South American country.

Verses by the renowned American poet who has won the Pulitzer Prize for both poetry and fiction are arranged in reverse chronological order and reveal his continual development.

Captures the contemporary poet's thoughts about the changing faces of time and being.

After achieving world renown as a classical and medieval literary scholar, marrying twice, fathering a son, and having an ill-fated love affair, uprooted and alienated Jed Tewksbury returns to his Alabama hometown to visit his mother's grave and make peace with himself.

Offers a collection of stories, non-fiction, poetry, and selections from his novels, including "A Place To Come To," "Blackberry Winter," "At Heaven's Gate," and "Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce"

Recent poems by the Pulitzer prize winning author deal with time, death, and our relationship to the natural world.

First published in 1956, Segregation is a collection of Robert Penn Warren's informal conversations with southerners in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Warren, who in his own writing often explored the theme of race in American life, traveled through his native region to talk with scores of individuals - taxi drivers, NAACP leaders, members of White Citizens groups, college students, preachers - to report their responses to the Court's decision.

This second volume of letters by the first United States Poet Laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Penn Warren, finds him editing the Southern Review, which under his leadership during these years blossomed into an influential and respected journal. Letters to AllenTate and others illustrate the passion of his mind, as he continued his poetic output, published his first important novel, and developed text books from his perspective as a beloved instructor of verse.

John Burt's SELECTED POEMS OF ROBERT PENN WARREN is more broadly representative of Warren's poetry than any previous such gathering. More than two hundred poems from every phase grace the volume, a vehicle ideal for sampling or soaking in the finest of Warren's rich output.

This volume includes selections from all of the poet's previous poetic works and fifty new poems, never before published, to introduce this collection.

This definitive anthology of classic lyric poetry representing six centuries of Britain's greatest poets includes the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Yeats, and others.

In 1984, Abrams proudly published Fifty Years of American Poetry to commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Academy of American Poets, with poems from each of the Academy's Chancellors, Fellows, and prizewinners, and a historical preface by the late poet and Academy Chancellor Robert Penn Warren. Since then, the Academy has continued to further the art f poetry; new prizes, new programs, and the emergence of a new generation of American poets have characterized the past decade. This Expanded Edition increases the book's contents to more than 200 poems, with a new preface by Academy Chancellor Emeritus Richard Wilbur.

This textbook examines all the ingredients of fiction and presents samples of fiction from many noted authors.

The fourth edition of UNDERSTANDING POETRY is a re-inspection of poetry. Keeping it teachable and flexible, the material allows for full and innocent immersion as well as raising inductive questions to develop critical and analytical skills. Students will be led to understand poetry as a means of imaginatively extending their own experience and indeed, probing the possibilities of the self. This latest incarnation of the landmark text facilitates a thorough study of poetry.

Records the author's penetrating interviews with leaders of the Negro Revolution expressing their views on present achievements and future problems.

In the admixture of wilderness and elegant society that was 1826 Kentucky, Jeremiah Beaumont, a brilliant, imaginative lawyer, stood trial for murdering his benefactor and father figure, the politician Colonel Cassius Fort. Now all the documents are in hand to reconstruct Beaumont's life story -- his crime, his trial, his ultimate sin, and punishment -- and the historian-narrator of World Enough and Time sets about doing just that. Based on the famous murder case known as the Kentucky Tragedy, World Enough and Time is, like its precursor All the King's Men, a fictional wonder that personifies history, philosophy, politics, and passion.