John O'Hara

a novel

Appointment in Samarra

Originally published in 1935 and an immediate bestseller, "BUtterfield 8" was inspired by a news account of the body of a beautiful woman washing up on a Long Island beach. Her death was never resolved, but O'Hara seized upon the tragedy to imagine her down-and-out life in New York City in the early 1930s.

Butterfield 8

Andrea

Ten North Frederick

Selected and With an Introduction by Frank MacShane

Collected Stories of John O'Hara

Spanning his 40-year career, this anthology collects, for the first time, the New York stories from one of the 20th century's definitive chroniclers of the city who explores the materialist aspirations and sexual exploits of the flawed. Original.

The New York Stories

Phildadelphian's Story : a Novel

Lovey Childs

Graven Image

For its 75th anniversary and Frank Sinatra’s centennial: the Jazz Age masterpiece that inspired the iconic Sinatra film and the hit Broadway musical, and featuring the musical’s libretto and lyrics On the seedy side of Chicago nightlife in the 1930s, Joey Evans is a poor man’s Bing Crosby—a big-talking, small-time nightclub crooner down on his luck but always on the make. In slangy, error-littered letters signed “Pal Joey,” he recounts his exploits with brash nightclub managers, shady business partners, and every pretty girl (“mouse”) he meets. Charismatic yet conniving, Pal Joey is a smooth operator whose bravado and big ideas disguise a far less self-assured soul, caught up in the rags-to-riches dream of the Jazz Age. Originally serialized in The New Yorker and the inspiration for the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical of the same name and the 1957 film starring Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Rita Hayworth, Pal Joey is the story of a true “heel,” as complex and memorable as any antihero in American literature. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Novel and The Libretto and Lyrics

Pal Joey

One Sunday morning, Gloria wakes up in a stranger's apartment with nothing but a torn evening dress, stockings, and panties. When she steals a fur coat from the wardrobe to wear home, she unleashes a series of events that can only end in tragedy. Inspired by true events, this novel caused a sensation on its publication for its frank depiction of the relationship between a wild and beautiful young woman and a respectable, married man.

BUtterfield 8

Sylvan Barnet

Hugo Bedau

Also available with a copy of a pamphlet entitled "Documenting sources in APA style, 2020 update."

A Portable Guide

From Critical Thinking to Argument

The events of these three novels are based on O'Hara's own experiences

Sermons and Soda-Water

Three generations of the Chapin family, prominent citizens of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, struggle with the prides and passions in this epic saga of the American experience

Rachael Groner

Composing Gender explores questions around the central concept of gender: Is gender binary, or more complicated? How do we define gender and sexuality? What stereotypes, expectations, and rituals shape gender? What influence does the media have on gender? Readings by a range of feminist scholars, journalists, gender theorists, biologists, legal scholars, sociologists, and others take up these questions and more. Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students. The Web site for the Spotlight Series offers comprehensive instructor support with sample syllabi and additional teaching resources. The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting new line of single-theme readers, each featuring Bedford’s trademark care and quality. The readers in the series collect carefully chosen readings sufficient for an entire writing course—about 30 selections—to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students make inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as money, food, sustainability, and gender to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, each focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic. An Editorial Board of more than a dozen compositionists at schools focusing on specific themes have assisted in the development of the series.

A Bedford Spotlight Reader

Composing Gender

Jonathan Dee

The National Book Award-winning novel by the writer whom Fran Lebowitz called "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald" Joe Chapin led a storybook life. A successful small-town lawyer with a beautiful wife, two over-achieving children, and aspirations to be president, he seemed to have it all. But as his daughter looks back on his life, a different man emerges: one in conflict with his ambitious and shrewish wife, terrified that the misdeeds of his children will dash his political dreams, and in love with a model half his age. With black wit and penetrating insight, Ten North Frederick stands with Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, Evan S. Connell's Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge, the stories of John Cheever, and Mad Men as a brilliant portrait of the personal and political hypocrisy of mid-century America. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The best-loved book by the writer whom Fran Lebowitz compared to the author of The Great Gatsby, calling him “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald” One of the great novels of small-town American life, Appointment in Samarra is John O’Hara’s crowning achievement. In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Brimming with wealth and privilege, jealousy and infidelity, O’Hara’s iconic first novel is an unflinching look at the dark side of the American dream—and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence if a major American writer.

(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

A Novel

Баттерфілд, 8

Files on Parade

These are the stories, unavailable for some years and still amazingly fresh and arresting, that influenced a whole generation of short-story writers, not one of whom capped O'Hara's mastery of the genre. The selection includes: the "Pennsylvania stories" which describe the men and women in the countryside where O'Hara grew up; the "Hollywood stories" that show that fabled land in the years of its greatest glory when O'Hara was working there as a screenwriter; and the "New York stories" which come from the days when O'Hara was a familiar figure in cafe society. ISBN 0-394-54083-2 : $19.95.

John O'Hara

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