Contemporary American Literature: Bibliographies and Study Outlines

This book is intended as a companion volume to Contemporary British Literature; but the differences between conditions in America and in England have made it necessary to alter somewhat the original plan. In America today we have a few excellent writers who challenge comparison with the best of present-day England. We have many more who have been widely successful in the business of making novels, poems, plays, which cannot rank as literature at all. In choosing from such a large number a list for study, it is our hope that we have not omitted the name of any author who counts as a force in our developing literature; but, on the Other hand, it is undoubtedly true that we have excluded many writers whose work compares favorably with that of some on the list. Our choice has been governed by two principles: (1) To include experimental work—work dealing with fresh materials or attempting new methods—rather than better work on familiar patterns; and (2) to represent varying tendencies in the literary effort of our country today rather than work that ranks high in popular taste. The task of doing justice to every writer is impossible; but we have been primarily concerned not with writers but with readers—those who wish guidance to the best that there is in our literature and to the signs that point to the future. The word contemporary we have interpreted arbitrarily to mean since the beginning of the War, excluding writers who died before August, 1914, and living authors who have produced no work since then. Space limitations made it impossible to go back to the beginning of the century, and no Other date since then is so significant as 1914. The biographical material is limited to information of interest for the interpretation of work. The bibliographies are selective except in the case of the more important authors, for whom they are, for the student’s purpose, complete. The following items have usually been omitted: (1) books privately printed; (2) separate editions of works included in larger volumes; (3) unimportant or inaccessible works; (4) works not of a literary character; (5) English reprints; (6) editions Other than the first. Exceptions to this plan explain themselves