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Zusatztext “Here! for a certainty! is one of the great historical narratives of our century! a unique and brilliant achievement! one that must be firmly placed in the ranks of the masters.”—Van Allen Bradley! Chicago Daily News “A stunning book full of color! life! character and a new atmosphere of the Civil War! and at the same time a narrative of unflagging power. Eloquent proof that an historian should be a writer above all else.”—Burke Davis “This is historical writing at its best. . . . It can hardly be surpassed.”— Library Journal “Anyone who wants to relive the Civil War! as thousands of Americans apparently do! will go through this volume with pleasure. . . . Years from now! Foote’s monumental narrative most likely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind.”— New York Herald Tribune Book Review “To read this great narrative is to love the nation—to love it through the living knowledge of its mortal division. Whitman! who ultimately knew and loved the bravery and frailty of the soldiers! observed that the real Civil War would never be written and perhaps should not be. For me! Shelby Foote has written it. . . . This work was done to last forever.”—James M. Cox! Southern Review Informationen zum Autor Shelby Foote was born in Greenville, Mississippi, and attended school there until he entered the University of North Carolina. During World War II he served in the European theater as a captain of field artillery. In the period since the war, he wrote five novels: Tournament, Follow Me Down, Love in a Dry Season, Shiloh, Jordan County, and September, September. He was awarded three Guggenheim fellowships. Klappentext Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Modern Library publishes Shelby Foote's three-volume masterpiece in a new boxed set including three hardcovers and a new trade paperback, American Homer: Reflections on Shelby Foote and His Classic Civil War: A Narrative, edited by and with an introduction from Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham and including essays by Michael Beschloss, Ken Burns, Annette Gordon-Reed, and others. Random House publisher Bennett Cerf commissioned southern novelist Shelby Foote to write a short, one-volume history of the American Civil War. Thirty years and a million and a half words later-every word having been written out longhand with nib pens dipped into ink-Foote published the third and final volume of what has become the classic narrative of that epic war. As he approached the end of the final volume, Foote recounted this scene in a letter to his friend, the novelist Walker Percy: "I killed Lincoln last week-Saturday, at noon. While I was doing it (he had his chest arched up, holding his last breath to let it out) some halfassed doctor came to the door with vols I and II under his arm, wanting me to autograph them for his son for Xmas. I was in such a state of shock, I not only let him in; I even signed the goddam books, a thing I seldom do. Then I turned back and killed him and had Stanton say, 'Now he belongs to the ages.' A strange feeling, though. I have another 70-odd pages to go, and I have a fear they'll be like Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Christ, what a man. It's been a great thing getting to know him as he was, rather than as he has come to be-a sort of TV image of himself, with a ghost alongside." When Percy read the final book, he wrote to Foote: "It's a noble work. I'm still staggered by the size of the achievement. . . . It is The Iliad." A selection of these letters, along with essays by Jon Meacham, Michael Beschloss, Ken Burns, Annette Gordon-Reed, Michael Eric Dyson, Julia Reed, Robert Loomis, Donald Graham, John M. McCardell, Jr., and Jay Tolson, are included in American Ho...
