"Harold Bloom, named "The indispensible critic" by the New York Review of Books, returns with a definitive yet personal book on twelve American writers upon whose work he believes the American canon is built. While his references to American writers are wide-ranging, he focuses on twelve: Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, William...

This volume of essays by the influential New England critic is introduced by John Greenleaf Whittier. The wide-ranging title essay was described by the Boston Gazette as "a mine of almost inexhaustible wealth." Also included are "Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style," "Emerson and Carlyle," "Emerson as a Poet," and "Character and Genius of Thomas Starr King."

"The Southern Plantation: A Study in the Development and the Accuracy of a Tradition" by Francis Pendleton Gaines is a scholarly exploration of the southern plantation system, examining its evolution, cultural significance, and the myths that have shaped its historical legacy. Originally published in 1924, this book provides a nuanced analysis of one of the most iconic and controversial institutions in American history. Francis Pendleton Gaines,...

From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character.

Thomas C. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans. He illuminates

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"Sparky Sweets, Ph.D. and Wisecrack present Thug Notes, the outrageously funny, ultra-sharp guide to sixteen of literature's most beloved classics - including The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice and Things Fall Apart. Having already taught millions around the world, Dr. Sweets makes it easy to love and understand these important literary works. With hilarious character breakdowns, masterful analyses, witty observations,...

A new assemblage of masterly essays from a foremost scholar of American history and culture. Alan Trachtenberg has always been interested in cultural artifacts that register meanings and feelings that Americans share even when they disagree about them. Some of the most beloved ones-like the famous last photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken at the time of his second inaugural-are downright puzzling, and it is their obscure, riddlelike aspects that draw...

Edmund Wilson's last collection of criticism, The Devils & Canon Barham, contains ten essays on Poets, Novelists, and Monsters. Previously published in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, Wilson's writing featured in this volume sees the critic returning to his roots and youth, with essays on his childhood love for The Ingoldsby Legends, the works of Hemingway, Eliot's The Waste Land, and ends with a piece on The Monsters of Bomarzo...

"The Poetics of Plants in Spanish American Literature examines the defining role of plants in cultural expression across Latin America, particularly in literature. From the colonial georgic to Pablo Neruda's Canto general, Lesley Wylie's close study of botanical imagery demonstrates the fundamental role of the natural world and the relationship between people and plants in the region. Plants are also central to literary forms originating in the Americas,...

Here are Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant introductions to some classics, as well as considerations of recent novels, and reviews of several late-twentieth-century literary biographies--reviews that together form a memorable criticism of both life and the art of life-writing. Here especially are extended explorations of 'minor' figures, the creators of modest, overlooked, but fully achieved imaginative works, the celebration of which reveals so much...

In this collection of occasional writings and interviews, Percy discusses the role of the novelist, the moral obligations of Christians, the place of Herman Melville in American letters, and why Southerners regard him so highly. Other topics are the mysteries of language and human nature, and the failure of science and psychiatry to penetrate those mysteries. He also covers the nature of faith, and the prevalence of the second-rate in American life...