Portal:American literature
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States or in its preceding colonies. Before the founding of the United States, the British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States were heavily influenced by English literature. The American literary tradition thus began as part of the broader tradition of English literature.
This portal is not intended as an exhaustive list of works by Americans. Items that are listed might be included in a course on American literature, or have had a significant cultural impact. Literature courses typically do not cover scholarly works, whether historical, philosophical, religious, or scientific, so those works are not listed here. However, scholarly works about American literature are included under the appropriate sections.
See Portal:United States for works created by or pertaining to the government of the United States.
Literature by form
[edit]American poetry
[edit]- For a more extensive listing see Category:American poetry.
- "Thanatopsis", by William Cullen Bryant (1811)
- "Defence of Fort McHenry" ("Star-Spangled Banner"), by Francis Scott Key (1814)
- "To a Waterfowl", by William Cullen Bryant (1818)
- "The Raven", by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
- The Song of Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
- "Bury Me in a Free Land", by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1858)
- "Paul Revere's Ride", by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1861)
- "O Captain! My Captain!", by Walt Whitman (1865)
- "Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl", by John Greenleaf Whittier (1866)
- Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1882)
- "Because I could not stop for Death—", by Emily Dickinson (1890)
- "We Wear the Mask", by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1896)
- "When de Co'n Pone's Hot", by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1896)
- "The House of Falling Leaves", by William Stanley Braithwaite (1908)
- "Fog", by Carl Sandburg (1916)
- "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", by Robert Frost (1922)
- The Man Who Died Twice, by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1924)
American novels
[edit]- For a more extensive listing see Category:American novels.
- The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper (1826)
- Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1840)
- The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
- The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
- Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851)
- Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1851)
- Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
- The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain (1882)
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884)
- Billy Budd, by Herman Melville (1891)
- The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)
- The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903)
- The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (1906)
- White Fang, by Jack London (1906)
- Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton (1911)
- Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey (1912)
- Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)
- Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter (1913)
- A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1917)
- My Ántonia, by Willa Cather (1918)
- The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton (1920)
- Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis (1920)
- Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos (1925)
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
- The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway (1926)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder (1927)
- Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather (1927)
American short stories
[edit]- "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving (1819)
- "Rip Van Winkle", by Washington Irving (1819)
- "The Fall of the House of Usher", by Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
- "The Pit and the Pendulum", by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
- "The Tell-Tale Heart", by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
- "Rappaccini's Daughter", by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
- "Bartleby the Scrivener", by Herman Melville (1856)
- "The Man without a Country", by Edward Everett Hale (1863)
- "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", by Mark Twain (1865)
- "The Idyl of Red Gulch", by Bret Harte (1870)
- "The Luck of Roaring Camp", by Bret Harte (1870)
- "The Outcasts of Poker Flat", by Bret Harte (1870)
- "The Yellow Wall Paper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1901)
- "The Gift of the Magi", by O. Henry (1906)
- "The Ransom of Red Chief", by O. Henry (1907)
- "To build a Fire", by Jack London (1910)
- "Beyond Lies the Wub", by Philip K. Dick (1952)
American journals and autobiographies
[edit]- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin (1793)
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass (1845)
- Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington (1901)
- The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams (1918)
American essays
[edit]- Common Sense, by Thomas Paine (1776)
- Nature, collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1836)
- Walden, or, Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
- The Souls of Black Folk, collection of essays by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)
American orations
[edit]- "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", by Jonathan Edwards (1741)
- "Resistance to Civil Government", by Henry David Thoreau (1849)
- "Ain't I a Woman?", by Sojourner Truth (1851)
- "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", by Frederick Douglass (1852)
- "Gettysburg Address", by Abraham Lincoln (1863)
- "Atlanta Compromise", by Booker T. Washington (1895)
- "Pearl Harbor speech", by Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941)
- "We choose to go to the moon", by John F. Kennedy (1962)
American dramatic works
[edit]- The Prince of Parthia, by Thomas Godfrey (1765)
- André, by William Dunlap (1798)
- Under the Gaslight, by Augustin Daly (1867)
- Madame Butterfly, by David Belasco and John Luther Long (1900)
- Beyond the Horizon, by Eugene O'Neill (1918)
- A Star is Born (1937) (Commons file), by Dorothy Parker, William A. Wellman, Robert Carson, and Alan Campbell
Other American works
[edit]- The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (1678)
- The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain (1869)
- Ten Days in a Mad-House, by Nellie Bly (1887)
- How the Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis (1890)
- The Fun of It, by Amelia Earhart (1932)
Collections of American literature
[edit]- The Poets and Poetry of America, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1842)
- The Female Prose Writers of America, edited by John Seely Hart (1852)
- The Book of American Negro Poetry, edited by James Weldon Johnson (1922)
- Representative American Plays, edited by Arthur Hobson Quinn (1922)
Individual authors
[edit]- For a more extensive listing see Category:United States authors.
Colonial period (17th & 18th centuries)
[edit]- William Bradford
- Anne Bradstreet
- Charles Brockden Brown
- John Bunyan
- William Dunlap
- Jonathan Edwards
- Benjamin Franklin
- Thomas Paine
- William Penn
- John Trumbull
- Phillis Wheatley
- John Woolman
19th century
[edit]- Louisa May Alcott
- William Cullen Bryant
- Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)
- Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (Nellie Bly)
- James Fenimore Cooper
- Stephen Crane
- Augustin Daly
- Emily Dickinson
- Frederick Douglass
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- Francis Bret Harte
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Julia Ward Howe
- Washington Irving
- Henry James
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- James Russell Lowell
- Herman Melville
- John Neal
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- Henry David Thoreau
- Walt Whitman
- John Greenleaf Whittier
1900 to 1960
[edit]- Earl Derr Biggers
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher
- Willa Cather
- e. e. cummings
- Philip K. Dick
- John Dos Passos
- Theodore Dreiser
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- William Faulkner
- Edna Ferber
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Robert Frost
- Zona Gale
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Zane Grey
- Dashiell Hammett
- Ernest Hemingway
- Langston Hughes
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Sinclair Lewis
- Jack London
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Amy Lowell
- Claude McKay
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
- Andre Norton
- Eugene O'Neill
- Dorothy Parker
- William Sydney Porter (O. Henry)
- Ezra Pound
- Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Carl Sandburg
- Upton Sinclair
- Gertrude Stein
- Booth Tarkington
- Sara Teasdale
- Booker T. Washington
- Edith Wharton
- Thornton Wilder
Works about American literature
[edit]Books
[edit]- A History of the American Theatre (1832) by William Dunlap (external scan)
- The Cambridge History of American Literature (1917)
- Our Poets of Today (1918) by Howard Willard Cook
- The American Novel (1921/1940) by Carl Clinton Van Doren (1940 version)
- Contemporary American Novelists 1900-1920 (1922) by Carl Clinton Van Doren (transcription project)
- Americans (1922) by Stuart Pratt Sherman
- Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) by D. H. Lawrence
Articles and Chapters
[edit]- "American Literature" in America To-Day, Observations and Reflections (1900) by William Archer
- "Supernatural Horror in Literature", by H. P. Lovecraft (1927)
Encyclopedic articles
[edit]- "Literature of the United States" in The American Cyclopædia (1879) by C. S. Weyman and Robert Carter
- "American Literature," in Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 1911)
Literary magazines
[edit]- The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science (1845-1849)
- Publishers Weekly (1872-)
See also
[edit]Child portals
[edit]Parent portals
[edit]Related portals
[edit]- Portal:United States - for works created by or written about the United States government or its agencies.