海角大神

On this New Year鈥檚 Eve as in others past, people around the world will once again hear the age-old exhortation to ring out the old and ring in the new. It鈥檚 a nice sentiment that somehow, to serious readers, doesn鈥檛 quite make sense.

We readers like novelty as much as anyone else, which is why book catalogs announcing the next season鈥檚 line of titles always fill me with the same sense of glee as a gardener glancing a seed packet. Here it is, the last day of December, and I鈥檓 already thinking about David McCullough鈥檚 鈥淭he Wright Brothers,鈥� not due out until May. I think a lot about books not yet published, and the smell of a new volume, the pages still redolent of fresh ink, is more intoxicating than champagne for me.

But for several years now, in addition to the work I do in reviewing new books, I鈥檝e had another enjoyable sideline as a frequent contributor to Humanities magazine, published by the National Endowment for the Humanities. For Humanities, I write profiles of classic authors, assignments that require me to immerse myself in period literature. That might sound dryly historical, like poking around in the family attic, but connecting with celebrated authors of the past has reminded me that these writers endure precisely because they can reach across generations and say something as urgently topical as this morning鈥檚 headlines.

That鈥檚 why experienced readers know that the choice between old and new authors is a false one. No need for us to ring out the old to make way for the new; we can enjoy our Jane Austen and our Jane Smiley, our Stephen Crane and our Stephen King.

Here are five vintage authors I鈥檝e chronicled for Humanities who鈥檇 make rewarding reading in 2015. They鈥檙e each featured in attractive, definitive editions of their work published by The Library of America. Ring in the old!

1) H.L. Mencken. Mencken鈥檚 caustic journalism helped define the Jazz Age, but in the 1930s and 1940s, he mellowed a bit, publishing three well-received memoirs of his childhood and early manhood in his native Baltimore near the dawn of the 20th century. Published as 鈥淒ays Revisited鈥� this year by LOA, they鈥檙e a treat from start to finish.

2) Washington Irving. Irving 聽is best known as the man who wrote 鈥淭he Legend of Sleepy Hollow,鈥� but this Eastern dandy also went West later in his life, chronicling his adventures in 鈥淎 Tour on the Prairies.鈥� It鈥檚 bracing, sometimes funny stuff, the record of an early city slicker on the American frontier. 聽

3) Robert Frost. Frost abides as a national icon on the strength of poems such as 鈥淪topping by Woods on a Snowy Evening鈥� and 鈥淢ending Wall.鈥� But an LOA edition of his letters and prose contains some lively, lesser-known stuff, including his proposed curriculum for the high school where he taught during his early career.聽 Frost鈥檚 lesson plans included 鈥淭reasure Island鈥� and Tennyson. 鈥淭he general aim of the course in English,鈥� Frost said, 鈥渋s twofold: to bring our students under the influence of the great books, and to teach them the satisfaction of superior speech."聽聽

4 ) Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson鈥檚 essays can seem lofty, elevated, a bit remote. But a two-volume LOA edition of his journals reveals a more intimate, playfully human voice. That LOA project, published in 2010, is attracting new fans to Emerson鈥檚 prose.

5) James Agee. Agee鈥檚 place in posterity rests on a poignant novel, 鈥淎 Death in the Family,鈥� and his contemplation of Depression-era Alabama sharecroppers, 鈥淟et Us Now Praise Famous Men.鈥� But Agee was also a gifted film critic, helping to establish film criticism as a literary form. The best of his film pieces, along with assorted reportage, is in the LOA鈥檚 鈥淛ames Agee: Film Writing and Selected Journalism.鈥� 聽聽聽聽