The story behind the composition and publication of a literary work is often almost as interesting as the work itself. The essays gathered here under the skillful editorship of James Barbour and Tom Quirk present the fascinating "biographies" of ten well-known works by some of the most inventive and important authors in American literature. From Mark Twain to Ken Kesey, Edith Wharton to Eudora Welty, these writers helped shape the American literary imagination.

The workings of their individual imaginations as affected by time and circumstance are the subject of this volume. These critical investigations by distinguished contributors touch upon the authors' lives and loves, their unique methods of writing, and their ambivalent, sometimes stormy, relationships with agents, publishers, and artistic forebears.

Unlike critical approaches that treat literary works as linguistic artifacts, these essays seek to recreate a sense of literature as a unique product of the human imagination.