american literature

Advice and inspiration from writers through the interviewsof 31 authors.

Elizabeth D. Samet recounts her experiences working as an English teacher at West Point Military Academy, focusing on how her former students' experiences in war have transformed the way she viewed literature, which often romanticizes the realities of combat.

Presents a overview of the development of American literature, examining the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which it evolved, and describing each period's trends and how it affected literary genres, writers, and works of the time. Includes timeline and glossary.

Contains twelve essays that describe how racial issues are presented in major literary works such as Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird, " and includes plot summaries, historical background, and a discussion of overt and subtle racism.

A study guide to "The Call of the Wild, " and 'White Fang, " two stories of dogs struggling for survival; providing biographical information about the author, general plot summaries, character lists, summaries and commentaries, critical theories, review questions, and a selected bibliography.

A study guide to "The Scarlet Letter, " a story that explores the price of sin in Puritan Boston; providing biographical information about the author, a list of characters, a plot synopsis, chapter summaries and commentaries, character analyses, critical essays, suggested essay topics, and a selected bibliography.

Writer Dave Eggers chooses twenty-five stories and articles to represent the best writing of 2002 for readers in their early twenties.

The author presents a memoir of her life in post-revolutionary Iran, focusing on her organization of a group of young women in 1997 who met secretly once a week to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature.

Gives biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on twelve modern African American poets and dramatists.

Reprint of a 1934 text in which the author meditates upon the design and goals of literary culture, chronicling the conditions, ideas, and experiences that shaped American writing in the early twentieth century, and paying homage to the nurturing atmosphere of Paris in the 1920s.