Out of This Furnace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Paperback Edition |
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| Author | Thomas Bell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel, Family saga |
| Publisher | Little, Brown & University of Pittsburgh Press |
| Released | 1941 (rediscoverd & reissued 1976) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 424 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-8229-5273-4 Paperback |
| Preceded by | All Brides Are Beautiful |
| Followed by | Till I Come Back To You |
Out of This Furnace is an historical novel and the best-known work of the American writer Thomas Bell (1903–1961).
The novel is set in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a steel town just south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania along the Monongahela River. It was first published in 1941 by Little, Brown and Company. Based upon Bell's own family of Rusyn and Slovak immigrants, the story follows three generations of a family, starting with their migration in 1881 from Austria-Hungary to the United States, and finishing with World War II. The novel's title refers to the central role of the steel mill in the family's life and in the history of the Pittsburgh region.
Long out of print, the novel was rediscovered in the 1970s by David P. Demarest, Jr., a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, who convinced director Frederick A. Hetzel at the University of Pittsburgh Press to reissue it in 1976. The book quickly became a regional bestseller. By the 1980s, however, it found an even larger readership on American college campuses. Out of This Furnace is regularly used as required reading in universities to introduce students to the history of immigration, industrialisation, and the rise of trade unionism, as well as to the genre of the American working class novel.
[edit] References
- Bell, Thomas (1991, 1976, 1968, 1941). Out of This Furnace, 50th Anniversary Edition, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-3690-9.
- Demarest, David P. Jr.; Domike, Steffi (producer) (1990). Out of This Furnace: A Walking Tour of Thomas Bell's Novel (video). University of Pittsburgh Press (distributor). ISBN None.
