"Algren is an artist whose sympathy is as large as Victor Hugo's, an artist who ranks . . . among our best American authors."-Chicago Sun-Times

"The Devil's Stocking is clearly vintage Algren. . . . [He] seems not to have aged but only matured and to be, as never before, in firm possession of his subject. His language throughout the novel is precise, controlled, almost entirely free of the lush lyrical excesses of the past, but nonetheless genuinely warm and alive. The story is recognizable as belonging in the classic Algren repertoire, yet is also freshly conceived and carried forward with an easy assurance that indicates Algren had it in him to write five or six more novels in the same vein."-The New York Times Book Review

The Devil's Stocking is the story of Ruby Calhoun, a boxer accused of murder in a shadowy world of low-purse fighters, cops, con artists, and bar girls. Chronicling a battle for truth and human dignity that gives way to a larger story of life-and-death decisions, literary grandmaster Nelson Algren's last novel is a fitting capstone to a long and brilliant career.

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) wrote of the despised urban underbelly of America before it was fashionable to do so and still stands as one of our most defiant and enduring novelists. His novels include The Man with the Golden Arm (winner of the first National Book Award), A Walk on the Wild Side, and Never Come Morning.

Notes from a Sea Diary offers one of the most remarkable appraisals of Ernest Hemingway ever written. Aboard the freighter Malayasia Mail, Algren ponders his personal encounter with Hemingway in Cuba, and the values inherent in Hemingway's stories, as he visits the ports of Pusan, Kowloon, Bombay, and Calcutta.

Who Lost an American? is a whirlwind spin through Paris and playboy clubs, New York publishing and Dublin pubs, Crete, and Chicago as Algren adventures with Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Brendan Behan, and Juliette Grco.

Nelson Algren (19091981) wrote of the despised urban underbelly of America before it was fashionable to do so, and still stands as one of our most defiant and enduring novelists. His novels include The Man with the Golden Arm, winner of the first National Book Award, A Walk on the Wild Side, and Never Come Morning.

“So long, baby . . . walk pretty all the way,” says Ralph to his fourteen-year-old girlfriend on her way to the wild side, in the last story Nelson Algren ever published, gathered here in a treasure trove of previously uncollected fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. Published during the centennial year of Algren’s birth, Entrapment and Other Writings contains some of Algren’s earliest short stories, as well as the last two he wrote before his death in 1981. The centerpiece of the collection is Algren’s unfinished novel, Entrapment. Based on the life of his friend Margo, a heroin addict and prostitute, the novel demonstrates some of his finest and most provocative writing.

Nelson Algren (1909-1981) wrote of the despised urban underbelly of America before it was fashionable to do so, and he still stands as one of our most defiant and enduring novelists. His novels include The Man with the Golden Arm, winner of the first National Book Award; A Walk on the Wild Side; and Never Come Morning.

Editor Brooke Horvath is the author of Understanding Nelson Algren. A poet as well, Horvath is a professor of English at Kent State University.