King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era (2nd Edition)

Ed Berlin is the premiere modern researcher of Scott Joplin and the early days of ragtime. In 1980 he published Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, a perceptive look at both the development of the music itself and the social milieu in which it was performed. In 1994 he followed up with his definitive biography, King Of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era. In the intervening years, he has continued to research, aided by the phenomenal tools of the internet age which can now accomplish in minutes what once took months of scanning microfilm. In the process, he unturned new treasures and began to question a few of his conclusions. To account for this new research he produced a second overhauled edition of King of Ragtime in 2016, fully a third longer and complete with 7 new chapters. The new material is woven throughout the volume, notably much of Joplin's early life has been fleshed out and what was only ten pages in the first volume has been expanded to two full chapters. He has uncovered several prior presentations of Joplin's first stage work The Ragtime Dance, and he follows his Texas Medley Quartet through 1890s tours in the years ahead of his success with "Maple Leaf Rag". Much more is made of Freddie Alexander who died briefly after marrying Joplin in 1904 and who may have inspired him in critical ways, including his dogged pursuit of his opera Treemonisha. That work its