Historical and international in scope, an anthology traces the course of literary journalism and nonfiction prose from its origins in the eighteenth century to today, from Daniel Defoe to Joseph Mitchell to Richard Ben Cramer Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda, journalists and journalism teachers, saw a need for a textbook that celebrated and organized outstanding examples of literary journalism. In this compendious volume spanning 372 years, the editors focus on the evolution of New Journalism, a term which, we learn, "was originally coined by Matthew Arnold in 1887 to describe the style of Stead's Pall Mall Gazette : brash, vivid, personal, reform-minded, and--occasionally, from Arnold's conservative viewpoint--'featherbrained.'" The editors position Daniel Defoe 's The True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild (1725) as the prototype for the true-crime narrative. The collection's first section, entitled "Pioneers," includes such staples as Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson , Walt Whitman's Specimen Days , and Jack London 's daring 1902 exposé of life among the city of London's impoverished East Enders. Brief introductions to each selection set the historical context and explain innovative aspects of the piece. The second section compares two distinctly contemporary journalistic points of view: the "I Am a Camera" school and the unabashedly subjective approach exemplified by Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson , among others. "Style as Substance" makes up the lively and often moving third section. Many rich voices describe all angles of the human experience in this impressive volume. Through author Piers Paul Read we crash-land with a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes; Lillian Ross gives us a notoriously devastating portrait of Ernest Hemingway ; Ted Conover assimilates into illegal Mexican culture and smuggles us back and forth across the border. The only anthology of its kind, The Art of Fact almost doubles as a travel book. The authors (both English and journalism, Univ. of Delaware) compiled this excellent anthology for their students in a college course in literary journalism. In their introductions, they define literary journalism as factual, innovative, and current stories about an event, making the point that this "new" journalism is not really new but has been practiced for many years. The journalists included range from Charles Dickens and Jack London to Gay Talese and Joan Didion. Kerrane and Yagoda give brief biographies of the writers, usually telling why they chose the particular work, when the piece was written, and where it first appeared. This book is recommended for journalism collections but it could easily find interested readers in most libraries.?Rebecca Wondriska, Trinity Coll. Lib., Hartford, Ct. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Kerrane, author of books about baseball, and Yagoda, author of a biography of Will Rogers, both teach courses on literary journalism, an endeavor that inspired their compilation of this distinctive and enjoyable anthology of, to use their definition, "thoughtfully, artfully, and valuably innovative" journalism. Kerrane and Yagoda have narrowed the broad category of creative nonfiction to writing that is literary in quality but strictly factual in content, as opposed to more impressionistic essays and memoirs. They discuss the finer points of literary journalism in their sharp and informative preface, then present an edifying array of sterling examples, ranging from works by such pioneers as Daniel Defoe, Stephen Crane, and Jack London to works by Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and John McPhee. The selection of confident and sometimes riling voices is matched by an enlivening diversity of subject matter, from politics to sports, nature, war, and crime, a wealth guaranteed to broaden readers' perception of literary journalism and establish appropriately high standards for this vital genre. Donna Seaman This far-flung and irresistible collection includes Stephen Crane on life among New York City derelicts; Joan Didion on L.A. when the lethal Santa Ana wind blows; Rosemary Mahoney on venturing into a lesbian bar in Dublin; what it's like to be a legend ( Lillian Ross on Hemingway) or a bearded lady ( Joseph Mitchell on "Lady Olga"). It even lets you know what sparring with Joe Louis was like (Jimmy Cannon on Billy Conn), but then the whole book is full of nonfiction knockouts. -- Entertainment Weekly Used Book in Good Condition