A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death.

Augie March is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Depression. A 'born recruit', he latches on to a wild succession of occupations, then proudly rejects each one as too limiting. He goes on to recruit himself to even more outlandish projects, but always ducks out in time to continue improvising his unconventional career.

During a vicious persecution of the clergy in Mexico, a worldly priest, the 'whisky priest', is on the run. With the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny, reluctant to abandon those who need him, and those he cares for.

Miller's groundbreaking first novel, banned in Britain for almost thirty years, now reinvigorated in a new Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition.

First published in 1935, this is the story of a distinguished scholar in Germany between the wars. It builds up the elements in the scholar himself, and in his personal relationships, which will lead to his destruction. The author won the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature.