Michael Meyer

In 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was published to critical acclaim. To commemorate To Kill a Mockingbird's 50th anniversary, Michael J. Meyer has assembled a collection of new essays that celebrate this enduring work of American literature. These essays approach the novel from educational, legal, social, and thematic perspectives.

Harper Lee's only novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was transformed into a beloved film starring Gregory Peck as...

In 1995, at the age of twenty-three, Michael Meyer joined the Peace Corps and, after rejecting offers to go to seven other countries, was sent to a tiny town in Sichuan. Knowing nothing about China, or even how to use chopsticks, Meyer wrote Chinese words up and down his arms so he could hold conversations, and, per a Communist dean's orders, jumped into teaching his students about the Enlightenment, the stock market, and Beatles lyrics. Soon he realized...

Among the masterpieces of world literature, this early verse drama by the celebrated Norwegian playwright humorously yet profoundly explores the virtues, vices, and follies common to all humanity — as represented in the person of Peer Gynt, a charming but irresponsible young peasant. Based on Norwegian folklore and Ibsen’s own imaginative inventions, the play relates the roguish life of the world-wandering Peer, who finds wealth and fame...

"Brand was Ibsen's first masterpiece, a poetic drama composed in 1865 and published to tremendous critical and popular acclaim. The unsparing vision of a priest driven by faith to risk and witness the deaths of his wife and child gives Brand its icy ferocity. When he was writing it in Italy, Ibsen declared: 'It is blessedly peaceful out here; no one I know; I read nothing but the Bible ... ' Geoffrey Hill provides a new Preface to this third and revised...

"A dark satire about the rise of a fascist American dictator." --