Before the turn of the century, the American funeral was simple "to the point of starkness," says Jessica Mitford, the acclaimed muckraking journalist who published this investigation of the country's funeral business in 1963. That the country went on to
"Mitford's funny and unforgiving book is the best memento mori we are likely to get. It should be updated and reissued each decade for our spiritual health."--The New York Review of BooksOnly the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitfo
“Decca” Mitford lived a larger-than-life life: born into the British aristocracy—one of the famous (and sometimes infamous) Mitford sisters—she ran away to Spain during the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s ne
'A Fine Old Conflict' is the sequel to 'Hons and Rebels' the first part of Jessica Mitford's extraordinary life story. It tells of her experiences in the Communist Party which she joined in California during World War II and left in 1958, illustrating, wi
Three decades ago, Jessica Mitford became famous when she introduced us to the idiosyncracies of American funeral rites in The American Way of Death. Now in a book as fresh, provocative, and fearless as anything else she has written, she shows us how and
In response to requests from instructors and students for shorter and less expensive composition readers, 40 Model Essays — featuring material adapted from the successful The Compact Reader — offers about half the usual number of readings for about h
Ever since Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, Israel and the Palestinian people have been engaged in what commentators persist in calling "the peace process." Yet Israel remains racked by violence and continuing land seizu
As the Orient Express hurtles across Europe on its three-day journey from Ostend to Constantinople, the driven lives of several of its passengers become bound together in a fateful interlock. The menagerie of characters include Coral Musker, a beautiful c
Augie comes on stage with one of literature’s most famous opening lines. “I am an American, Chicago born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.” It’s the “Ca
