Best of
Americana

1955

Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade


Patrick Dennis - 1955
    It was made into a play, a Broadway as well as a Hollywood musical, and a fabulous movie starring Rosalind Russell. Since then, Mame has taken her rightful place in the pantheon of Great and Important People as the world's most beloved, madcap, devastatingly sophisticated, and glamorous aunt. She is impossible to resist, and this hilarious story of an orphaned ten-year-old boy sent to live with his aunt is as delicious a read in the twenty-first century as it was in the 1950s.

The Vintage Mencken


H.L. Mencken - 1955
    The anthology that spans an entire lifetime of writing by America's greatest curmudgeon, with a "flick of mischief on nearly every page."

Wild America: The Record of a 30,000 Mile Journey Around the Continent by a Distinguished Naturalist and His British Colleague


Roger Tory Peterson - 1955
    There they began a strenuous and thrilling hundred-day field trip around the edge of the continent. Part travelogue, part epic natural adventure, their richly illustrated record is "the superlatively good product of ideal circumstances" (Chicago Sunday Tribune).

Our Vanishing Landscape


Eric Sloane - 1955
    Leading us along rustic winding roads bordering fields and farmhouses, Eric Sloane captures our imaginations as he offers us a guided tour that evokes the America of pioneer times.This fascinating narrative describes networks of canals, corduroy roads, and turnpikes; tollgates, waterwheels, and icehouses; country inns and churches; ingenious and colorful road signs; and massive snow-rollers that packed snow into hard surfaces for great sleds. Here also are engrossing accounts of toll-road owners, sign painters, circus folk, and other entertainers of the period.Brimming with anecdotes about people and the times, this delightful, warmly written book remains a genuine and permanent contribution to the field of Americana.

Big Woods


William Faulkner - 1955
    An avid hunter as well as one of America's greatest writers, Faulkner spent many days hunting in the big woods near Oxford, Mississippi.Included here is his most famous hunting story, "The Bear", as well as "The Old People", "A Bear Hunt", and "Race at Morning". Together, these four stories are considered to be the finest hunting stories ever written. Each is introduced with a prelude that weaves these tales together into a modern American classic.This book, a classic collection of sporting literature, belongs in the library of every sportsman. Big Woods was published in 1955. It has long been out of print in hard cover, and a copy of the book commands up to $175 if you can find one. We are honored to offer you a special edition of Big Woods.This edition of 1,200 copies is bound in rich cloth on 70-pound acid-free paper, with a silk ribbon and a handsome slipcase.

The "Higher Law" Background of American Constitutional Law


Edward S. Corwin - 1955
    Corwin is considered a leading constitutional scholar of the twentieth century. Alpheus Mason described Corwin’s writings as “sources of learning and understanding—hallmarks to emulate and revere.” The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law is of unique value in connecting the Western European experience—from the classical world, the Middle Ages, and the seventeenth-century thought of Coke and Locke—to the American founding. This renowned work provides a bold and accurate outline of the tradition behind the “higher law” of the United States and places in historical context the political philosophy underlying the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. This volume addresses questions such as: • Where did the idea of a “higher law” originate? • How has it been able to survive and in what transformations? • What special forms of it are of particular interest for historians and political theorists? • How was it brought to America and wrought into the American system of government? As Clinton Rossiter notes in his prefatory note, “No one can come away from reading [Higher Law] without realizing how much we in America are part of Western civilization. The men we meet in the pages of this essay—Demosthenes, Sophocles, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Ulpian, Gaius, John of Salisbury, Isidore of Seville, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bracton, Fortescue, Coke, Grotius, Newton, Hooker, Pufendorf, Locke, Blackstone—all insisted that the laws by which men live can and should be the ‘embodiment of essential and unchanging justice,’ and we may salute them respectfully as founding fathers of our experiment in ordered liberty.” In this volume Corwin demonstrates how the concept of a higher law developed and was understood by the leading thinkers of the American Revolutionary period as well as how the ideal of the higher law impacted the creation of the American Constitution. Students, scholars, and general interested readers of constitutional law and political theory will find inspiration in the pages of The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law .Edward S. Corwin (1878–1963) served as the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University from 1908 to 1946.