In this first comprehensive literary history of Baltimore and Maryland (with notes on Washington writers), Frank R. Shivers, Jr., explores the region's long-overlooked but substantial contribution to American letters. In picture and story, Shivers's lively account ranges from the colonial satire of Ebenezer Cook, to the National Anthem of Francis Scott Key, to the acclaimed works of Poe, Mencken, and Fitzgerald. Here are surprising stories of Frederick...

"At nine-years-old, D. Watkins has three concerns in life: picking his dad's lotto numbers, keeping his Nikes free of creases, and being a man. Directly in his periphery is east Baltimore, a poverty-stricken city battling the height of a crack epidemic just hours from the nation's capital. Watkins, like many boys around him, is thrust out of childhood and into a world where manhood means surviving by slinging crack on street corners and finding himself...

From the 1930s until the 1980s, Mitchell was a force in civil rights in Maryland.

Ralph Crosby's "Memoirs of a Main Street Boy" tells the tale of growing up at a tempestuous time in U.S. history - from the Great Depression, through World War II and the Cold War - in a town where America's colonial history was even more tempestuous, amid classic homes and institutions that still exist. The story takes you through the author's interplay with these historic places and events that helped shape U.S. history, as well as shaping his life...