Overview

The twelve original essays, written espe­cially for this volume, appraise our classic American writers and in so doing give fresh insight into the state of American literature today. The writers discussed here, all of whose works are now being published in definitive editions, are James Fenimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, John Dewey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Haw­thorne, William Dean Howells, Wash­ington Irving, Herman Melville, William Gilmore Simms, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman. These twelve varied but brilliantly executed essays on American literature will immeasurably broaden our under­standing of the classic American authors and their works. The variety of ap­proaches taken to these classic Ameri­can writers demonstrates the vitality of literary scholarship today. And the keen evaluation of the authors whose works have achieved permanence will prove the validity of Dr. Johnson's statement from which the book's title is taken: ""The chief glory of every people arises from its authours.""

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9780809306152

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Author Information

Matthew J. Bruccoli is Professor of English at the University of South Carolina.

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