Horace Stanley McCoy documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods in his gritty, hardboiled novels. Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. His work explored the darker aspects of the American dream and the psychological toll of extreme pressure. McCoy's distinctive style is known for its concision and potent imagery.
Horace saw the death of the Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire, and was personally acquainted with the emperor Augustus and the poet Virgil. This anthology of superb English translations will show how Horace has permeated English literature for five centuries.
The Satires of Horace offer a hodgepodge of genres and styles: philosophy and bawdry; fantastic tales and novelistic vignettes; portraits of the poet, his contemporaries, and his predecessors; jibes, dialogue, travelogue, rants, and recipes; and poetic effects in a variety of modes. For all their apparent lightheartedness, however, the poems both illuminate and bear the marks of a momentous event in world history, one in which Horace himself played an active role--the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Principate. John Svarlien's lively blank-verse translation reflects the wide range of styles and tones deployed throughout Horace's eighteen sermons or conversations, deftly reproducing their distinctive humor while tracking the poet's changing mannerisms and moods. David Mankin's Introduction offers a brief account of the political upheavals in which Horace participated as well as the social setting in which his Satires were produced, and points up hallmarks of the poet's distinctive brand of satire. His detailed commentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at Roman society and an often between-the-lines examination of a key work of one of Rome's sharpest observers.
Set against the backdrop of Hollywood, the narrative explores the intertwining themes of temptation and desire, presenting a hard-boiled perspective on the darker side of fame. With a perverse twist, the story delves into the complexities of ambition and the moral dilemmas faced by its characters, revealing the seductive yet dangerous allure of the entertainment industry.
The first full commentary in English since the nineteenth century, suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a kind of success story. A Phi Beta Kappa scholar succeds in turning himself into a vicious and completely immoral criminal - a man whose contempt for law, order, and human life drives him relentlessly into a career of unrelieved evil. He escapes from a chain gang to join a pack of gangsters and a millionaire's daughter falls in love with him, but eventually his past overtakes him. Kiss Tomorrrow Goodbye is McCoy's most ambitious work and the basis for one of the great gangster movies, starring James Cagney.
This is a superb new translation of the great Augustan poet Horace's Odes and Epodes - brilliantly crafted and diverse poems of politics, friendship, love, and wine. The edition is supplemented by a lucid introduction, extensive notes, and glossary of names.
The Great Depression led people to take desperate measures to survive. The marathon dance craze, which flourished at that time, seemed a simple way for people to earn extra money, dancing the hours away for cash, for weeks at a time.But the underside of that craze was a competition and violence unknown to most ballrooms. A lurid tale of dancing and desperation, Horace McCoy's classic American novel captures the dark side of the 1930s.
