This comprehensive and penetrating study of American writing traces its colorful development from the first writing produced in the Western Hemisphere, a letter from Christopher Columbus to King Ferdinand, to the works William Faulkner. It shows how American literature evolved as the living experience of a democratic people.
"One of the most stimulating, exciting and rewarding surveys of American literature." —Boston Herald
"A discriminating, concise evaluation of important writers and their works." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch