Kevin J Hayes: 9 books

Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer--a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of...

When it comes to the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton are generally considered the great minds of early America. George Washington, instead, is toasted with accolades regarding his solid common sense and strength in battle. Indeed, John Adams once snobbishly...

The life of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) is the quintessential writer’s biography—great works arising from a life of despair, poverty, alcoholism, and a mysterious solitary death. It may seem like a cliché now, but it was Poe who helped shape this idea in the popular imagination. Despite or perhaps...

Herman Melville is hailed as one of the greats—if not the greatest—of American literature. Born in New York in 1819, he first achieved recognition for his daring stylistic innovations, but it was Moby-Dick that would win him global fame. In this new critical biography, Kevin J. Hayes surveys Melville’s...

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born November 30, 1835, in Monroe County, Missouri, was never one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. An indefatigable inventor of tall tales, Mark Twain was a natural-born storyteller who freely adapted the incidents of his life and the tales he heard as a youth...

Cyclotourism has recently risen to prominence with growing national media coverage and thousands of participants taking to America’s roadways on two wheels and under their own pedal power. But the concept is not new. More than a century ago, George B. Thayer took his own first “century,”...

Herman Melville’s reputation as a great writer has gradually evolved throughout the past century. Tempered by studies that emphasize the Western literary tradition, literary appreciation for Melville’s use of folklore has been slow in developing. This ground-breaking study brings to the forefront...

Most frequently regarded as a writer of the supernatural, Poe was actually among the most versatile of American authors, writing social satire, comic hoaxes, mystery stories, science fiction, prose poems, literary criticism and theory, and even a play. As a journalist and editor, Poe was closely in...

A pillar of African American literature, Richard Wright is one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in American history. His work championed intellectual freedom amid social and political chaos. Despite the popular and critical success of books such as Uncle Tom's Children (1938), Black...