Stars in Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign June-July 1863 (Modern Library Series)

Shelby Foote's monumental three-part chronicle of the Civil War was hailed by Walker Percy as "an unparalleled achievement, an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist."

Drawn from Foote's acclaimed and massive The Civil War: A Narrative - the central chapter of the central volume, and therefore the capstone of the arch - this new addition to the Modern Library offers a matchless account of the epic Gettysburg Campaign. Complete with detailed maps, Stars in Their Courses brilliantly re-creates the three-day conflict: it is a masterly treatment of a key great battle and the events that preceded it - not as legend has it but as it really was, before it became distorted by controversy and overblown by remembered glory.

"Gettysburg... is described with such meticulous attention to action, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commanders that, at last, what happened in the battle [can be understood]," said The Atlantic.