The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism

by Kevin Kerrane (Editor), Ben Yagoda (Editor)

This fascinating compilation of the journalist's art unites the reporter's magnificent eye for detail with the novelist's gift for storytelling. Featuring eyewitness accounts of war and social revolution, profiles of sports heroes and politicians, and eye-opening investigations into both the mundane and the eccentric details of life, it includes:

Includes:

Preface by Ben Yagoda
Making Facts Dance by Kevin Kerrane
from The True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild by Daniel Defoe
from The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
Watercress Girl by Henry Mayhew
The Great Tasmania's Cargo by Charles Dickens
from Specimen Days by Walt Whitman
from If Christ Came to Chicago by W. T. Stead
When Man Falls, a Crown Gathers by Stephen Crane
An Experiment in Misery by Stephen Crane
The Death of Rodriguez by Richard Harding Davis
Can't Get Their Minds Ashore by Abraham Cahan
Pillelu, Pillelu! by Abraham Cahan
from The People of the Abyss by Jack London
Drift by Morris Markey
from Ninety Times Guilty by Hickman Powell
Juke Joint by Walter Bernstein
from Hiroshima by John Hersey
The Day of the Fight by W. C. Heinz
from "Portrait of Hemingway" by Lillian Ross
Two Generals by Norman Lewis
The Silent Season of a Hero by Gay Talese
from In Cold Blood by Truman Capole
from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
from Alive by Piers Paul Read
from House by Tracy Kidder
from Brothers by Sylvester Monroe and Peter Goldman
So ... We Meet at Last, Mr. Bond by Bob Greene
Shadow of a Nation by Gary Smith
from What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
The Spike by George Orwell
from "The Bronx Slave Market" by Marvel Cooke
from The Earl of Louisiana by A. J. Liebling
The Fight to Live by Al Stump
from The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
from "The Scum Also Rises" by Hunter S. Thompson
The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones by Ron Rosenbaum
from Coyotes by Ted Conover
from "The Snap Revolution" by James Fenton
Tiananmen Square by John Simpson
from Among the Thugs by Bill Buford
from Whoredom in Kimmage by Rosemary Mahoney
from "Harlem on My Mind" by Lawrence Otis Graham
from "Snake Handling and Redemption" by Dennis Covington
The Pig by Ben Hecht
Japanese Earthquake by Ernest Hemingway
from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee
The Third Winter by Martha Gellhorn
Marrakech by George Orwell
Lady Olga by Joseph Mitchell
from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
from Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck
Lethal Lightning by Jimmy Cannon
It's an Honor by Jimmy Breslin
The Girl of the Year by Tom Wolfe
Los Angeles Notebook by Joan Didion
from The Pine Barrens by John Mcphee
from Dispatches by Michael Herr
from Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski
from Homicide by David Simon
from Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexiyevich
Holiday Pageant: The Importance of Being Bluebell by Michael Winerip

Genres: Journalism, Writing, Nonfiction, History, Reference, School

560 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 1997

About the author

Kevin Kerrane (Ph. D., University of North Carolina ) has edited several anthologies of drama and has co-edited (with Ben Yagoda) The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism. He is the author of Dollar Sign on the Muscle: The World of Baseball Scouting, cited by Sports Illustrated as one of the "100 Best Sports Books of All Time." He is also the editor of a critical anthology about the Irish writer Billy Roche.

Many of Professor Kerrane's course focus on drama, especially Irish drama, and he often coordinates his classes with theatrical productions on or near campus. He also teaches courses on documentary film, and is an advisor for the annual Newark Film Festival as well as the regular Sunday night International Film Series on campus.