Melville's sacramental style -- Thoreau faces death -- Little woman who started the great war -- Two Lincolns -- Henry Adams and the end of the world -- Short, unhappy life of Stephen Crane -- Was Kate Chopin a feminist? -- Lyrical Dreiser -- What would Edith Wharton think? -- New Native Son -- Political incorrectness of Zora Neale Hurston -- Reading for pleasure.
