First published as To Form a More Perfect Union in 1941, this rare volume of Civil War-era letters relates the poignant experiences of an English immigrant in the service of the United States Army as a noncommissioned officer, civilian employee, and Union volunteer. Frank Clarke served in Mexico, Missouri, New Mexico, and Bleeding Kansas, on the Sioux, Solomon River, and Utah expeditions, and in war-torn Tennessee and Mississippi. After Frank's tragic death in 1862, his wife Mary corresponded with his English mother, detailing the daily struggles of a military widow and her five sons in frontier Kansas. Darlis Miller has kept George Hammond's original annotations and added a few new ones. Her introductions to the book and individual chapters provide biographical details on Frank's and Mary's lives and place their letters in historical context.

Twenty year old Clarke ran away to America from Suffolk county, England, in 1847. After several unsuccessful business ventures he enlisted in the First U. S. Dragoons, serving from 1849 to 1854. While stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., in 1850, he met and married an Irish girl, Mary McGowan. Upon his release from the army he became clerk to the quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth, later being stationed at Fort Riley. In 1860 he purchased a toll bridge over the Kansas river on the Fort Riley military reservation, and when floods carried it away in the spring of 1861 he established a ferry. On October 4, 1861, Clarke became a first lieutenant in Co. I, Sixth Kansas Mounted volunteers - later Co. F, Sixth Kansas cavalry. On October 21 he was made a captain and until his death served as assistant adjutant general to Gen. J. W. Denver. He died suddenly at Memphis, Tenn., December 10, 1862, leaving his widow with five young sons to rear. Her letters from Junction City continue the story to 1872.

Kentucky's contribution to the perennially popular American craft of quiltmaking is a rich and varied one. Mary Clarke examines here the state of the craft in Kentucky and finds it as lively today as it was 150 years ago. Like a fingerprint, every Kentucky quilt differs from all others in some respects, whether it is an original creation or a variation of one of the traditional patterns long popular in the United States. And many Kentucky quilts reveal much about the individual maker—her disposition, taste, and lifestyle, the familiar objects that bring joy to her daily life, and her response to events beyond the confines of family and home. Taken as a whole, Kentucky quilts and quilt names reflect the history of the Commonwealth, at every turn showing the intermingling of old and new in the grassroots continuity of an ancient craft that responds to fads and fashions by absorbing and refining them.

"Renaissance Italy was its birthplace; Elizabeth of England and the Sun King encouraged and developed it. First Camargo, then Taglioni, Elssler, and Grisi inspired generations of ballerina-worshippers and respect for the new profession of theatrical dancer. Champagne was drunk from toe-slippers as Paris of the Second Empire unveiled spectacles whose popularity is unimpaired to this day, while French choreographers, engaged in St. Petersburg, linked the dance heritage of Europe to Imperial Russia, where the Tsar's court proved a fertile climate for a new magnificence in stage production and technical advance. In the 20th century, the quixotic Diaghilev--who did not dance, choreograph, paint, or compose, but merely managed and inspired--almost singlehandedly brought the Russian masterpieces to the West, and two fellow émigrés, Pavlova and Nijinsky, captured imaginations and helped to spread the Imperial style around the globe. On this base--from France, from Russia, and distantly from Italy--Fokine, Massine, Nijinska, Balanchine, Rambert, Ashton, Tudor, Cranko, Robbins, and many others have diversely created an art form that is one of the most popular--and forward-looking--of our time. Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp recount the story in rich detail, aided by a wonderfully fresh selection of illustrations, covering not only dancers and dance design but attendant concerns of costume, scenery, technique, criticism, and theatrical taste. They pursue this enterprise 'with a smile,' and the reader, too, will be amused at the image of 19th-century ballerinas en travesti, forced to assume male roles because the classical danseur was held in such low repute; the overweight Louis XIV monopolizing leading parts; Renaissance dancing masters struggling to walk, let alone dance, while wearing some 40 pounds of magnificence. There are tales to inspire sympathy, too: Taglioni danced until she fainted; Pavlova continued on bloody toes; Balanchine fled Russia without a ruble or an advance booking. The lively treatment here accorded a splendid art, complemented by an extensive bibliography, will be an invaluable guide to those who are discovering the pleasures of ballet and want to know more of its background, as well as a useful companion for afficionados, all of whom will find something they did not know before."--Dust jacket.

"But as A Drink with Shane MacGowan shows, the inspiration for his artistry and beliefs is as varied as his range of mind - embracing Ireland, religion, his family, esoteric philosophy and history."--Jacket.

As well as analyzing 143 popular ballets, this book also covers such topics as ballet history and includes biographies of famous choreographers and dancers.