Literature in America: An Illustrated History - Hardcover

Conn, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521303737 ISBN 13: 9780521303736

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1989

Synopsis

The entire span of American literature, in all its variety, from the early seventeenth-century to the late 1980s, is vividly recorded in this authoritative book. Professor Conn summarises the distinctive achievement of the novelists, poets, playwrights, and prose writers who together make up the fabric of America's literary heritage. Classics such as Thoreau, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison - all are expertly placed in their literary, historical, and cultural context. The scope of the book is enlarged by helpful chronological tables, an annotated guide to further reading, and above all by abundant illustrations. Its almost 200 half tones and colour plates comprise portraits and photographs of writers, original illustrations from novels, scenes from famous productions of plays, reproductions of manuscripts, paintings, cartoons, and rare printed material - an exceptional range of visual images which enrich and extend the book's discussion.

About this title

Book Description:

Professor Conn summarises the distinctive achievement of the novelists, poets, playwrights, and prose writers who make up the America's literary heritage from the early seventeenth-century to the late 1980's. Through helpful chronological tables, an annotated guide to further reading and an exceptional range of visual images, they will enrich and extend the book's discussion.

From Library Journal:

Conn presents a rather compact, encapsulated literary history that is very much historical in intent and achievement. From the first chapter, "The Colonial Experience," to the last, "Midcentury and Beyond," the arrangement of this history is chronological. Many of the illustrations are portraits or photographs of authors. Others, though, help to locate the literature in time and place. The book is not loaded with insights, but that is not its intent. Instead, it reads like an introduction and would probably make a very good supplement to a high school or undergraduate American literature survey. Useful for academic and public libraries.
- John Budd, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0521303737
• ISBN 13: 9780521303736
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 608