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The definitive biography of Hollywood horror legend Tod Browning—now revised and expanded with new material

One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time, Tod Browning (1880–1962) began his career buried alive in a carnival sideshow and saw his Hollywood reputation crash with the box office disaster–turned–cult classic Freaks. Penetrating the secret world of “the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema,” Dark Carnival excavates the story of this complicated, fiercely private man. In this newly revised and expanded edition of their biography first published in 1995, David J. Skal and Elias Savada researched Browning’s recently unearthed scrapbooks and photography archives to add further nuance and depth to their previous portrait of this enigmatic artist.

Skal and Savada chronicle Browning’s turn-of-the-century flight from an eccentric Louisville family into the realm of carnivals and vaudeville, his disastrous first marriage, his rapid climb to riches in the burgeoning silent film industry, and the alcoholism that would plague him throughout his life. They offer a close look at Browning’s legendary collaborations with Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi as well as the studio politics that brought his remarkable run to an inglorious conclusion. With a revised prologue, epilogue, filmography, and new text and illustrations throughout, Dark Carnival is an unparalleled account of a singular filmmaker and an illuminating depiction of the evolution of horror and the early film industry.

The true story of the Gilded Age’s “political twins” who brought women’s suffrage and political reform to the city of Pittsburgh.

Sometimes troublemakers emerge from the most unlikely of places. This true story follows the lives of two daughters of the Gilded Age—Lucy and Eliza Kennedy—who were educated at Vassar College and became leaders of the suffrage movement. Then, after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, they spent the next forty years fighting corruption in politics and government.

Tenacious, smart, and witty, they captivated crowds, disarmed their opponents, and instilled particular dread among the corrupt politicians who were the unfortunate targets of their nonpartisan crusade. Their entry across the threshold of Pittsburgh’s City-County Building would reportedly invoke a flurry of hushed warnings through the halls: “The She Devils are at the door!” Together, Lucy and Eliza fought for the vote, empowered women to use it wisely, forced a mayor out of office in disgrace, took control of the city budget, exposed a series of scandals, spearheaded police reform, and launched a campaign that would eventually clear Pittsburgh of its smoky veil.

Featuring the true story of two powerful women, this book comes at a propitious time, reminding us how far women have come and how vigilant we must remain.