Porgy’s Ghost

On the world stage, the opera Porgy and Bess is acclaimed as a distinctively American, yet universal, classic. Though scholars and the popular press have discussed it for nearly one hundred years, no one has factored in the major contributions of one of its forgotten authors—until now. Besides serving as a brief biography that illuminates Dorothy Heyward’s personal and professional life, which ranges from lighthearted whimsy to a descent into madness, what emerges in Porgy’s Ghost is a correctio