Library of America #318

Introduction by Rick Atkinson -- The longest day : June 6, 1944 -- A bridge too far -- Other World War II writings (Selected dispatches for the Daily Telegraph 1944-1945 -- The major of St Lô (1957) -- The longest day (1965) -- Untold stories from The longest day (1974) -- To William Buckley, November 19, 1957 -- To Peter Schwed, February 24, 1959 -- Sample response to questionnaire for The longest day: William Rhinehart Washington (c. 1958) -- Sample response to questionnaire for A bridge too far: J.T. Richards (c.1967))

"Library of America presents two of the best books ever written about World War II in a deluxe collector's edition featuring 88 pages of photographs, full-color endpaper maps, rare archival material revealing how the books were written, and a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian Rick Atkinson (The Liberation Trilogy). The Longest Day tells the story of the Allies' greatest success, the Normandy invasions of June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord; A Bridge Too Far recounts perhaps their greatest failure, the catastrophic airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944, known as Operation Market Garden. Together, they reveal not only the twisting fortunes of war and the grand sweep and scale of the largest amphibious and airborne invasions ever mounted, but also the very real human experience of combat, the small but momentous individual acts that can change the course of history. No one has told these stories more powerfully than Cornelius Ryan."--Amazon