William Styron

In the late summer of 1831, in a remote section of southeastern Virginia, there took place the only effective, sustained revolt in the annals of American Negro slavery. The revolt was led by a remarkable Negro preacher named Nat Turner, an educated slave who felt himself divinely ordained to annihilate all the white people in the region. This story is narrated by Nat himself as he lingers in jail through the cold autumnal days before his execution....

First published to wide critical acclaim in 1951, Lie Down in Darkness centers on the Loftis family--Milton and Helen and their daughters, Peyton and Maudie. The story, told through a series of flashbacks on the day of Peyton's funeral, is a powerful depiction of a Southern family doomed by its failure to forget and its inability to love.

Three autobiographically inspired novellas by Styron that tell the story of a young writer's journey to adulthood. William Styron's A Tidewater Morning features three novellas centered around budding novelist Paul Whitehurst's coming of age during the Great Depression and Second World War. They convey Whitehurst's struggle to cope with his mother's terminal cancer, his view of the strained racial relations in the pre-war American South, and his anxiety...

The New York Times–bestselling memoir of crippling depression and the struggle for recovery by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sophie’s Choice.

In the summer of 1985, William Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide,...

This volume takes readers on an American journey from FDR to George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the country's greatest writers. Not only will readers take pleasure in William Styron's correspondence with and commentary about the people and events that made the past century such a momentous and transformative time, they will also share the writer's private meditations on the very art of writing.

A comedy-drama set in the VD ward of a Navy hospital during World War II.

Two works about soldiers in a time of dubious peace by a writer of eloquence and moral authority. With stylistic panache and vitriolic wit, Styron depicts conflicts between men of somewhat more than average intelligence and the military machine. In The Long March, a novella, two Marine reservists fight to retain their dignity while on a grueling exercise staged by a posturing colonel. The uproariously funny play In the Clap Shack charts the terrified...

"Including significant previously uncollected material, My Generation is the definitive gathering of the fruits of this beloved writer's five decades of public life. Here is the William Styron unafraid to peer into the darkest corners of the 20th century or to take on the complex racial legacy of the United States. But here too is Styron writing about his daily walk with his dog, musing on the Modern Library's "100 Greatest Books," and offering personal...

A drama set in post-World War II Brooklyn revolves around Sophie, a Polish Catholic beauty who survived Auschwitz, her lover, Nathan, and Stingo, a would-be writer. As the three grow closer, Stingo discovers the captivating and moving truths that each harbor.