First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

This classic novel of childhood is set in fictional St. Petersburg, a town based on Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Twain’s recounting of Tom Sawyer’s many escapades is by turns nostalgic, satiric, wise, and hilarious. While this novel is often considered mainly as the precursor to Twain’s great work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is abundantly worth considering for its own deft and loving transformation of autobiography into fiction. In addition to the full text of the novel based on the first American edition, complete with a selection of the original illustrations by True Williams, this Broadview edition provides a wide range of appendices that place the novel in the context of 1840s rural America as well as 1870s literary America. These include materials on the composition and marketing of Tom Sawyer, selections from other “boy books” of the period, and historical documents relating to temperance, children’s literature, and schools.

Explores "logic of sympathy" in novels by Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, T.S. Arthur, Martin Delany, Horatio Alger, Fanny Fern, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Henry James, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells.