Porgy’s Ghost

The Life and Works of Dorothy Heyward and Her Contribution to an American Classic

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

AvHarlan Greene

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On the world stage, the opera Porgy and Bess is acclaimed as a distinctively American, yet universal, classic. Though scholars and the popular press have discussed it for nearly one hundred years, no one has factored in the major contributions of one of its forgotten authors—until now. Besides serving as a brief biography that illuminates Dorothy Heyward’s personal and professional life, which ranges from lighthearted whimsy to a descent into madness, what emerges in Porgy’s Ghost is a correction to a long-standing omission of Dorothy Heyward’s influence on Porgy, the novel written by her husband; Porgy, the play, mostly her creation; and Porgy and Bess, the opera often credited solely to George and Ira Gershwin. Fighting to restore her husband DuBose Heyward’s name to that work, she hid her own contributions to maximize his. After years of research in her archives and previously unknown materials, author Harlan Greene reveals a cypher of a woman who, in her lifetime and long after, was dismissed as unimportant.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-11-15
Mått152 x 229 x 21 mm
Vikt618 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor285
FörlagUniversity of Georgia Press
ISBN9780820375090

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Biografi: konst och underhållning inom Biografier

HARLAN GREENE is emeritus Scholar in Residence at the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library. He was also director of Archival Services at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, and he founded the archives at the Charleston County Public Library. Greene is chair of Charleston’s Historical Commission. An award-winning novelist, he has also authored or coauthored several nonfiction works, including Mr. Skylark: John Bennett and the Charleston Renaissance (Georgia) and Slave Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South Carolina, 1783–1865. He is also the coeditor of Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900–1940 (Georgia).

Porgy's Ghost is an adventure in literary sleuthing worthy of Sherlock Holmes. But in the hands of ace archivist Harlan Greene, Dorothy Heyward's underappreciated role in the creation of an American classic also provides the stuff of great biography—deep insight not only into the person but also into her place and times. Meticulously researched and exquisitely written, this fine book should find an audience well beyond the many devotees of Porgy and Bess.