Woody Guthrie

Having hacked his way through adversaries playing screen roles like Captain Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd, Johnny Depp will now be slicing into manuscripts (ideally with a red pen, and not with a cutlass or a razor blade) as he starts his own literary imprint.

The legend of Woody Guthrie as folk singer is firmly etched in America’s collective consciousness. Compositions like “Deportee,” “Pastures of Plenty” and “Pretty Boy Floyd” have become national treasures akin to Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” But Guthrie, who would have been 100 years old on July 14, was also a brilliant and distinctive prose stylist, whose writing is distinguished by a homespun authenticity, deep-seated purpose and remarkable ear for dialect.