For many university presses, especially those located at public institutions, regional publishing has long been considered a central part of their mission, reflecting the mandate of their universities to serve the citizens of their states. Although Penn State Press had published a number of regional books over the years (our first book was Edward J. Nichols’s Toward Gettysburg: A Biography of General John F. Reynolds), we had no series devoted specifically to regional books until the mid-1970s. The Keystone Books series was established precisely to give the Press a way to publish those general-interest regional books that otherwise fall outside the bounds of our academic list. According to our official series description, books in the Keystone Series are "intended to serve the citizens of Pennsylvania by educating them and others, in an entertaining way, about aspects of the history, culture, society, and environment of the state as part of the Middle Atlantic region." The entertainment element distinguishes Keystone Books from the other books we publish. Keystone Books also need not be original contributions to scholarship.