Norman Lock Book order

A young artist meets Stephen Crane as America's hunger for empire draws them both into war Oliver Fischer, a self-styled bohemian, boardwalk caricaturist, and student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, enrages his banker father and earns the contempt of Philadelphia's foremost realist painter Thomas Eakins when he attempts to stage Manet's scandalous painting The Luncheon on the Grass. Soon after, he is ensnarled, along with Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie, in a clash between the Anti-Imperialist League and their expansionist foes. Sent to Key West to sketch the 1898 American invasion of Cuba, in company with war correspondent Stephen Crane, he realizes--in the flash of a naval bombardment--that our lives are suspended by a thread between radiance and annihilation. The Caricaturist, the penultimate, stand-alone book in The American Novels series, is a tragicomic portrait of America struggling to honor its most-cherished ideals at the dawn of the twentieth century.

"Retired from public life, Ralph Waldo Emerson takes up arms to save a fugitive black soldier from unjust arrest in the tenth of Lock's American Novels"--

"After the Union Army's defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott converge on Washington to attend to the sick, wounded, and dying. Both of these iconic Americans, known for bucking the conventions of their day, find their principles and beliefs tested by grueling and grisly duties. Walt Whitman was a man of many contradictions: egocentric yet compassionate, vain though frequently transported by the beauty of others, he was a bigot who sang the song of all mankind as the great poet of democracy. He delighted in the pleasures of the flesh and had no patience for religiosity but was moved by the spiritual in all men and women, from janitor to president. Louisa May Alcott, still beloved for Little Women, was an intense, intellectual, independent woman, an abolitionist and a suffragist, who was compelled to write saccharine magazine stories to save her mother and siblings from the poorhouse but aspired to true, unsentimental artistic expression. Alcott would write of her Civil War nursing experiences in Hospital Sketches and Whitman in his poem "The Wound Dresser", from which these vivid fictional evocations are in part drawn. In this double portrait, Lock deftly captures the special musicality and preoccupations of each writer as they confront war's devastation and grapple with the politics of a racist reality that continues to haunt us today"-- Provided by publisher

In the eighth American Novels series book, Nathaniel Hawthorne pens a new tale to exact revenge on his ancestor, a notorious judge of the Salem witch trials.

In the seventh American Novels series book, a young woman joins Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Barnum's circus to rescue her infant from the KKK.

Set against the backdrop of Gilded Age Manhattan, a bankrupt merchant's life takes a turn when he encounters the renowned author Herman Melville. As he navigates the challenges of his financial ruin, he becomes embroiled in a dangerous pursuit by a relentless antagonist, leading to a gripping exploration of survival and the complexities of American society during this tumultuous era.

Set in the nineteenth century, this novel explores the deep personal crisis of an army chaplain who grapples with his faltering faith in both God and his country. Confiding in his first love, the renowned poet Emily Dickinson, he navigates themes of love, disillusionment, and the search for meaning amidst the turmoil of war. Their poignant interactions reveal the complexities of faith and the human experience during a tumultuous period in American history.

This black comedy blends absurdity with philosophical insights, challenging middle-class complacency. It employs humor to explore deeper themes, offering a satirical take on societal norms and expectations. The narrative invites readers to reflect on their own lives while navigating the absurdities of modern existence.

"The fourth self-contained volume of The American Novels series tells the story of Samuel Long, who escapes slavery in Virginia by traveling the Underground Railroad to Walden Woods, where he encounters Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Lloyd Garrison, and other transcendentalists and abolitionists. While Long will experience his coming-of-age at Walden Pond, his hosts will receive a lesson on human dignity, culminating in a climactic act of civil disobedience"--

A young surgical assistant encounters his doppelgänger in a gripping narrative that intertwines with the life of Edgar Allan Poe. The story not only delves into the eerie aspects of identity but also introduces a "lost" tale attributed to Poe, adding layers of mystery and literary intrigue. This blend of horror and historical fiction offers a unique exploration of self and the macabre, set against the backdrop of Poe's haunting legacy.