Jim Murphy

It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name--yellow fever--but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown and there is no cure. This powerful dramatic account by award-winning author Jim Murphy traces the devastating course of the epidemic. An American Plague offers a fascinating glimpse into the conditions in American cities at the...

Combines an account of Robert Louis Stevenson's experiences as he traveled from New York to California by train in 1879 and a description of the building and operation of railroads in nineteenth-century America.

On his way to town to have some fun, a lazy but clever young man faces a terrible demon, who declares that his time has come.

"Drawing on Arnold's surviving writings and on the letters, memoirs, and political documents of his contemporaries ... a fascinating portrait of a brilliant man, consistently undervalued by his peers, who made a choice that continues to reverberate through American history."

In September 1862, two great armies faced each other across Antietam Creek. The outnumbered Confederate forces were led by General Robert E. Lee. The Union army was led by General George B. McClellan. Jim Murphy uses archival photographs, maps, and firsthand accounts to recreate one of America's most important battles.

James Edmond, a sixteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his experiences and those of "G" Company which he joined as a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War.