From poetry to fiction to essays, American Lit 101 leaves no page unturned! Edgar Allan Poe. Willa Cather. Henry David Thoreau. Mark Twain. The list of important American writers goes on and on. These voices played a vital role in shaping the scope of American literature, and the United States itself. But too often, textbooks reduce this storied history to dry text that would put even a tenured professor to sleep. American Lit 101 is an engaging and comprehensive guide through the major players in American literature. From colonialism to postmodernism and every literary movement in between, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and concepts, along with easy-to-understand explanations on why each author's work was important then and still relevant now. So whether you're looking for a refresher course on key American literature or want to learn about it for the first time, American Lit 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

"A crash course in American literature"--Cover.

A guide to the greats in British literature! From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Charles Dickens' Tiny Tim to Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy and Shakespeare's Juliet, British authors have created some of the most compelling characters in all of literature. But too often, textbooks reduce these vibrant voices to boring summaries that would put even an English dean to sleep. English Lit 101 is an engaging and comprehensive guide through the major players in American literature. From romanticism to modernism and every literary movement in between, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and concepts, along with easy-to-understand explanations on why each author's work was important then and still relevant now. So whether you're looking for a refresher course on key English literature or want to learn about it for the first time, English Lit 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

This expansive Companion offers a set of fresh perspectives on the wealth of texts produced in and around what is now the United States. Highlights the diverse voices that constitute American literature, embracing oral traditions, slave narratives, regional writing, literature of the environment, and more Demonstrates that American literature was multicultural before Europeans arrived on the continent, and even more so thereafter Offers three distinct paradigms for thinking about American literature, focusing on: genealogies of American literary study; writers and issues; and contemporary theories and practices Enables students and researchers to generate richer, more varied and more comprehensive readings of American literature

Unlike any other book of its kind, this volume celebrates published works from a broad range of American ethnic groups not often featured in the typical canon of literature. This culturally rich encyclopedia contains 160 alphabetically arranged entries on African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American literary traditions, among others. The book introduces the uniquely American mosaic of multicultural literature by chronicling the achievements of American writers of non-European descent and highlighting the ethnic diversity of works from the colonial era to the present. The work features engaging topics like the civil rights movement, bilingualism, assimilation, and border narratives. Entries provide historical overviews of literary periods along with profiles of major authors and great works, including Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, Sherman Alexie, A Raisin in the Sun, American Born Chinese, and The House on Mango Street. The book also provides concise overviews of genres not often featured in textbooks, like the Chinese American novel, African American young adult literature, Mexican American autobiography, and Cuban American poetry.

From Cover to Cover and Sea to Shining Sea: The Authors who gave America its Voice Instant American Literature delves into our rich literary heritage. Filled with quirky facts and lively illustrations, this spirited survey visits the war-torn trenches with Stephen Crane, creeps through the nightmarish realm of Edgar Allan Poe, and ponders Walden Pond with henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you don’t know who (or what!) Natty Bumppo is or which legendary torne made famous the words “Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity! Then this book is for you. In this vastly informative entertaining compendium, you will: •learn the true meaning of rejection from Emily Dickinson, who lived to see seven poems published—out of a prolific 1,775 masterpieces. •discover which book was chosen by a federally appointed committee as a “must read.” •find out how Sir Walter Scott and the Underground Railroad made Frederick Douglas a free man. •learn which writer’s brain invented the headless horseman and get dirt on the original ”Smashing Pumpkins”! Instant American Literature is packed with special features, including chapter summaries, “who’s who: lists, illustrations and photographs, little-known biographical facts, and historical tidbits. Instant American Literature—It’s in a class by itself.

If 1776 heralds America's Birth of the Nation, so, too, it witnesses the rise of a matching, and overlapping, American Literature. For between the 1770s and the 1820s American writing moves on from the ancestral Puritanism of New England and Virginia - though not, as yet, into the American Renaissance so strikingly called for by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Even so, the concourse of voices which arise in this period, that is between (and including) Benjamin Franklin and James Fenimore Cooper, mark both a key transitional literary generation and yet one all too easily passed over in its own imaginative right. This collection of fifteen specially commissioned essays seeks to establish new bearings, a revision of one of the key political and literary eras in American culture. Not only are Franklin and Cooper themselves carefully re-evaluated in the making of America's new literary republic, but figures like Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, Philip Frencau, William Cullen Bryant, the other Alexander Hamilton, and the playwrights Royall Tyler and William Dunlop. Other essays take a more inclusive perspective, whether American epistolary fiction, a first generation of American women-authored fiction, the public discourse of The Federalist Papers, the rise of the American periodical, or the founding African-American generation of Phillis Wheatley. What unites all the essays is the common assumption that the making of America was as much a matter of creating its national literature; as the making of American literature was a matter of shaping a national identity.