Books published by publisher Wesleyan University Press

Brenda Hillman begins her new book in a place of mourning and listening that is deeply transformative. By turns plain and transcendent, these poems meditate on trees, bacteria, wasps, buildings, roots, and stars, ending with twinned elegies and poems of praise that open into spaces that are both magical and archetypal for human imagination: forests and seashores. As always, Hillman's vision is entirely original, her forms inventive and playful. At times the language turns feral as the poet feels her way toward other consciousnesses, into planetary time. This is poetry as a discipline of love and service to the world, whose lines shepherd us through grief and into an ethics of active resistance. Hillman's prior books include Practical Water and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the Griffin Prize for Poetry. Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days is a visionary and critically important work for our time. A free reader's companion is available online at http://brendahillman.site.wesleyan.edu. Hardcover is un-jacketed.

With one of the longest and most controversial careers in Hollywood history, Blake Edwards is a phoenix of movie directors, full of hubris, ambition, and raving comic chutzpah. His rambunctious filmography remains an artistic force on par with Hollywood's greatest comic directors: Lubitsch, Sturges, Wilder. Like Wilder, Edwards's propensity for hilarity is double-helixed with pain, and in films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, and even The Pink Panther, we can hear him off-screen, laughing in the dark. And yet, despite those enormous successes, he was at one time considered a Hollywood villain. After his marriage to Julie Andrews, Edwards's Darling Lili nearly sunk the both of them and brought Paramount Studios to its knees. Almost overnight, Blake became an industry pariah, which ironically fortified his sense of satire, as he simultaneously fought the Hollywood tide and rode it. Employing keen visual analysis, meticulous research, and troves of interviews and production files, Sam Wasson delivers the first complete account of one of the maddest figures Hollywood has ever known.

A multi-dimensional explosion hurls the starship's few passengers across the galaxies and onto an uncharted barren tundra. With no technical skills and scant supplies, the survivors face a bleak end in an alien world. One brave woman holds the daring answer, but it is the most desperate one possible.Elegant and electric, We Who Are About To... brings us face to face with our basic assumptions about our will to live. While most of the stranded tourists decide to defy the odds and insist on colonizing the planet and creating life, the narrator decides to practice the art of dying. When she is threatened with compulsory reproduction, she defends herself with lethal force. Originally published in 1977, this is one of the most subtle, complex, and exciting science fiction novels ever written about the attempt to survive a hostile alien environment. It is characteristic of Russ's genius that such a readable novel is also one of her most intellectually intricate.

In Puritan New England, with its abiding concern for things not of this world and its distrust of forms and ceremonies, one art flourished: the symbolic art of mortuary monument stonecarvers. This carefully researched, beautifully illustrated work was the first to consider this art in depth as a meaningful aesthetic-spiritual expression. It is reissued for today's readers, with a new preface outlining changes in the field since the book appeared in 1966.

Brenda Hillman begins her new book in a place of mourning and listening that is deeply transformative. By turns plain and transcendent, these poems meditate on trees, bacteria, wasps, buildings, roots, and stars, ending with twinned elegies and poems of praise that open into spaces that are both magical and archetypal for human imagination: forests and seashores. As always, Hillman's vision is entirely original, her forms inventive and playful. At times the language turns feral as the poet feels her way toward other consciousnesses, into planetary time. This is poetry as a discipline of love and service to the world, whose lines shepherd us through grief and into an ethics of active resistance. Hillman's prior books include Practical Water and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the Griffin Prize for Poetry. Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days is a visionary and critically important work for our time. A free reader's companion is available online at http://brendahillman.site.wesleyan.edu. Hardcover is un-jacketed.

University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures, Eleanor Roosevelt.Eleanor Roosevelt was an iconic figure. Best known for being First Lady of the United States during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she conquered shyness and marital betrayal and used her quiet power to knock down barriers of race and gender in the United States and promote human rights around the world.After her husband died, Eleanor went on to become chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission where she formulated, presented, and worked to secure global implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – words that are now written into national constitutions around the globe. This short book tells the intensely human story of a woman who changed the world in a way that no one else could.

University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures, Alexander Hamilton.Alexander Hamilton was an orphan from a remote island in the Caribbean. Yet he went on to become one of the elite Founding Fathers of the United States, and, as America’s first Treasury Secretary, the founder of the nation’s financial system. A man of honor, conviction, and genius, Alexander was still not immune to scandal and conflict. His extra-marital affair deeply hurt his beloved wife and brought him ridicule from his political opponents. And his dispute with Vice President Aaron Burr resulted in their famous duel – and in Hamilton’s violent and premature death.This short book tells the intensely human story of a man who changed the world in a way that no one else could.

The women's rights movement grew out of the women's suffrage movement of the mid-1800s and also addressed other women's legal rights issues. The second wave of the movement, which promoted economic, political, and social equality, gained momentum in the 1960s and '70s, when such groups as the National Organization for Women fought for equal pay and laws banning employment discrimination. Clearly written, The Women's Rights Movement is an illuminating introduction to one of the most prominent reform movements of the last 40 years. The book is published by Chelsea House Publishers, a leading publisher of educational material.

University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures, Albert Einstein.Albert Einstein was once told by a teacher that he would never amount to anything. Yet he went on to develop the special and general theories of relativity, won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921, and become the most influential physicist of the 20th century.Einstein would later write that he was deeply affected by his first encounter with a compass at age five. He was mystified that invisible forces could deflect the needle. This would lead to a lifelong fascination with invisible forces. Along his circuitous route to fame, Einstein fell in love, enjoyed his family, escaped from Nazi Germany, experienced heartbreak, and advised the President of the United States.This short book tells the intensely human story of a man who changed the world in a way that no one else could.