Between 1790 and 1840, millions of middle-class Americans throughout the nation encountered "Fancy": they rode in a Fancy sleigh, dressed up in Fancy clothes, blew their noses in Fancy handkerchiefs, bought goods at Fancy shops, ate at Fancy tables on Fancy dishes, and slept under Fancy coverlets. Not just fancy but Fancy: an early nineteenth-century cultural phenomenon born out of new and enlightened ways of seeing, understanding, and responding to the surrounding world. Fancy expressed itself in just about everything that pleased the senses; generally colorful and boldly patterned, it elicited delight, awe, surprise, whim, and caprice. Whether experienced in the form of painted surfaces, kaleidoscopic quilts, or imaginary landscapes, Fancy engaged the emotions and expanded the imagination, expressing the core of human fancy. "American Fancy" offers an appropriately fantastic experience of this uniquely American sensibility. Author Sumpter Priddy has assembled and produced an original oeuvre in the field of decorative arts, going beyond the traditional modes of furniture analysis, which concentrate on style, history, and construction, to consider the perceptual and emotional responses through which the original users and viewers would have interacted with these material things. To this end he employs the interpretive methods used in the fields of literature, fine arts, philosophy and even psychology. Rich, fully illustrated, wondrously researched, and bound in a cover that imitates a typical Fancy pattern, "American Fancy" does its marvelous subject true.

Lily Carrington's family's hopes for a titled marriage are pinned on Lily and she vows not to disappoint them. But when she becomes a pawn in a sordid plot of seduction by the Prince of Wales himself, Lily finds herself falling in love with a most unlikely hero. (August)

"Joe is dancing the Fancy Dance for the first time. How do you think he feels?"--Back cover.

A charming and significant story set prior to the Civil Rights Movement about a boy who finds a way to challenge segregation laws. Frank has always been obsessed with elephants. He loves their hosepipe trunks, tree stump feet, and swish-swish tails. So when Miss Fancy, the elephant, retires from the circus and moves two blocks from his house to Avondale Park, he's over the moon! Frank really wants to pet her. But Avondale Park is just for white people, so Frank is not allowed to see Miss Fancy. Frank is heartbroken but he doesn't give up: instead he makes a plan! Frank writes to the City Council so his church can host a picnic in the park, and he can finally meet Miss Fancy. All of his neighbors sign the letter, but when some protest, the picnic is cancelled and Frank is heartbroken all over again. Then Miss Fancy escapes the zoo, and it's up to Frank to find her before she gets hurt.

This study places Djuna Barnes's early work in the context of symbolist ideas and practices. It presents Barnes not only as a woman writer, but also as an American writer, especially in her attention to the search for identity and to the conflict between individual values and those of society.