Outlines of English and American Literature / An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

by William J. Long

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GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books dealing with individual writers and with limited periods are named elsewhere, in the special bibliographies that supplement each of the preceding chapters. The following works, selected from a much larger number, will be found useful for reference during the entire course of study.

AMERICAN LITERATURE. There is unfortunately no series of scholarly volumes covering the whole field, and nothing that approaches a standard history of the subject. One of the best general surveys is Richardson, American Literature, 2 vols. (Putnam, 1887). This is a critical work, containing no biographical material, and the historical sequence is broken by studying each type of literature (fiction, poetry, etc.) by itself. Other general surveys, containing a small amount of biography sadly interwoven with critical matter, are Trent, American Literature (Appleton); Cairn, History of American Literature (Oxford University Press); Wendell, Literary History of America (Scribner); and the Cambridge American Literature, 2 vols. (announced, 1916, Putnam). There are also a score of textbooks dealing briefly with the subject.

Among histories dealing with selected authors in groups or with the
writers of some particular section of the country are National
Studies in American Letters (Macmillan), which includes Higginson's
Old Cambridge, Nicholson's The Hoosiers, Addison's The Clergy in
American Letters, etc.; Fulton, Southern Life in Southern
Literature; Moses, Literature of the South; Holliday, History of
Southern Literature; Wauchope, Writers of North Carolina; Lawton,
The New England Poets; Painter, Poets of Virginia; Venable,
Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley.

POETRY. Stedman, Poets of America; Onderdonck, History of
American Verse; Collins, Poetry and Poets of America.

FICTION. Loshe, The Early American Novel; Erskine, Leading
American Novelists; Smith, The American Short Story; Baldwin,
American Short Stories; Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Howells,
Criticism in Fiction; James, The Art of Fiction; Crawford, The
Novel: What It Is.

MISCELLANEOUS TYPES. Jameson, History of Historical Writing in America; Payne, Leading American Essayists; Brownell, American Prose Masters; Haweis, American Humorists; Payne, American Literary Criticisms; Sears, History of Oratory; Fuller and Trueblood, British and American Eloquence; Seilhamer, History of the American Theater; Hudson, Journalism in the United States; Thomas, History of Printing in America.

A very useful little book is Whitcomb, Chronological Outlines of American Literature (Macmillan), in which all important works are arranged, first, in chronological order, year by year, and then according to authors.

BIOGRAPHY. The best series of literary biographies is American Men of Letters (Houghton). A few American authors are included in English Men of Letters, Great Writers, the brief Beacon Biographies and other series. Biographical collections are Adams, Dictionary of American Authors; Cyclopedia of American Biography, 6 vols. (Appleton); Allibone, Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, 6 vols. (Lippincott); Howes, American Bookmen; Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches.