Library of America

The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

.

Overview and history

Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 and the Ford Foundation

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....

, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 to Philip Roth

Philip Roth

Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...

, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

 to Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

, including the selected writings of several U.S. presidents.

The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade

Bibliothèque de la Pléiade

The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade is a French series of books which was created in the 1930s by Jacques Schiffrin, an independent young editor. . Schiffrin wanted to provide the public with reference editions of the complete works of classic authors in a pocket format...

("La Pléiade") series published in France provided the model for the LoA, which was long a dream of the critic Edmund Wilson

Edmund Wilson

Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...

.

The initial publishers included American academic Daniel Aaron

Daniel Aaron (academic)

Daniel Aaron is an American writer and academic. Aaron helped found the Library of America in 1978.In 1937, Aaron became the first to graduate with a degree in "American Civilization" from Harvard University....

,
Lawrence Hughes, Helen Meyer, and Roger W. Straus, Jr.

Roger W. Straus, Jr.

Roger Williams Straus, Jr. was co-founder and chairman of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a New York book publishing company, and member of the Guggenheim family.-Early life:...

.
The initial board of advisers included Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...

, C. Vann Woodward

C. Vann Woodward

Comer Vann Woodward was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both by scholars and by...

, R.W.B. Lewis, Robert Coles

Robert Coles

Martin Robert Coles is an American author, child psychiatrist, and professor at Harvard University.-Life and career:...

, Irving Howe

Irving Howe

Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...

, and Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty

Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

.
Officers included Richard Poirier

Richard Poirier

Richard Poirier was an American literary critic.He co-founded the Library of America, and served as chairman of its board. He was the Marius Bewley Professor of American and English Literature at Rutgers University...

, Jason Epstein

Jason Epstein

Jason Epstein is an American editor and publisher.A 1949 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University, Epstein was hired by Bennett Cerf at Random House, where he was the editorial director for forty years. He was responsible for the Vintage paperbacks, which published such authors as...

, and Cheryl Hurley.
, Hurley remains president of the Library of America.

The first volumes were published in 1982, ten years after Wilson's death.
Besides the works of many individual writers, the series includes anthologies like Reporting World War II and (in a different format to the above illustration) Writing Los Angeles.

The publisher aims to keep classics in print permanently to preserve America's literary heritage. Although the LoA sells more than a quarter-million volumes annually, the publisher depends on individual contributions to help meet the costs of preparing, marketing and manufacturing its books.

LoA texts are prepared by recognized scholars, and determined efforts are made to correct errors and omissions in previous editions, which are normally listed and the source texts properly identified. For instance, the LoA text of Richard Wright's

Richard Wright (author)

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...

 Native Son

Native Son

Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...

restored a number of passages that had been previously cut. Each volume includes a chronology of the author's career or significant incidents in the case of the anthology volumes. The books are designed to be as long-lasting as possible, with (acid-free

Acid-free paper

Acid-free paper is paper that has a neutral or basic pH . It can be made from any cellulose fiber as long as the active acid pulp is eliminated during processing. It is also lignin and sulfur free...

) bible paper

Bible paper

Bible paper is a thin grade of paper used for printing books which have a large number of pages. Technically it is called lightweight offset paper and is a type of woodfree uncoated paper. It is used for making Bibles, encyclopedias and dictionaries. This paper grade often contains cotton or linen...

 (allowing books with a large number of pages to remain fairly compact), durable binding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

 cloth, and flexible, but firm binding boards.

The Publisher of the Library of America series is Max Rudin; and Geoffrey O'Brien

Geoffrey O'Brien

Geoffrey O'Brien is an American poet, editor, book and film critic, translator, and cultural historian. In 1992, he joined the staff of the Library of America as Executive Editor, becoming Editor-in-Chief in 1998.-Biography:...

 is Editor-in-Chief.

Main series

#	Author	Title	Editor(s)	Year	ISBN
1		Typee Typee Typee is American writer Herman Melville's first book, a classic in the literature of travel and adventure partly based on his actual experiences as a captive on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands, in 1842... , Omoo Omoo Omoo: A Narrative of the South Seas is Herman Melville's sequel to Typee, and, as such, was also autobiographical. After leaving Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel which makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and the majority of the crew are imprisoned on... , Mardi Mardi Mardi, and a Voyage Thither is the third book by American author Herman Melville, first published in 1849.-Overview:Mardi is Melville's first pure fiction work...		1982
2		Tales and Sketches		1982
3		Poetry and Prose		1982
4		Three Novels		1982
5		Mississippi Writings		1982
6		Novels and Stories		1982
7		Novels and Social Writings		1982
8		Novels 1875–1886		1982
9		Redburn, White Jacket, Moby-Dick		1983
10		Collected Novels		1983
11		France and England in North America, vol. 1		1983
12		France and England in North America, vol. 2		1983
13		Novels 1871–1880		1983
14		Novels, Mont Saint Michel, The Education		1983
15		Essays and Lectures		1983
16		History, Tales, and Sketches		1983
17		Writings		1984
18		Prose and Poetry		1984
19		Poetry and Tales		1984
20		Essays and Reviews		1984
21		The Innocents Abroad & Roughing It		1984
22		Literary Criticism: Essays, American & English Writers	& Mark Wilson	1984
23		Literary Criticism: European Writers & The Prefaces	& Mark Wilson	1984
24		Pierre, Israel Potter, The Confidence-Man, Tales & Billy Budd		1985
25		Novels 1930–1935	& Noel Polk	1985
26		The Leatherstocking Tales, vol. 1		1985
27		The Leatherstocking Tales, vol. 2		1985
28		A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod		1985
29		Novels 1881–1886		1985
30		Novels		1986
31		History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson		1986
32		History of the United States during the Administrations of Madison		1986
33		Novels and Essays		1986
34		Writings		1986
35		Early Novels and Stories		1987
36		Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, Twelve Men		1987
37A		Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, & Early Writings		1987 2005
37B		Autobiography, Poor Richard, & Later Writings		1987 2005
38		Writings 1902–1910		1987
39		Collected Works		1988
40		Complete Plays 1913–1920		1988
41		Complete Plays 1920–1931		1988
42		Complete Plays 1932–1943		1988
43		Novels 1886–1890		1989
44		Novels 1886–1888		1989
45		Speeches and Writings 1832–1858		1989
46		Speeches and Writings 1859–1865		1989
47		Novellas and Other Writings		1990
48		Novels 1936–1940	& Noel Polk	1990
49		Later Novels		1990
50		Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters	& William S. McFeeley	1990
51		Memoirs		1990
52		Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, The Alhambra Tales of the Alhambra Tales of the Alhambra is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving.-Background:Shortly after completing a biography of Christopher Columbus in 1828, Washington Irving traveled from Madrid, where he had been staying, to Granada, Spain...		1991
53		The Oregon Trail, The Conspiracy of Pontiac		1991
54		Sea Tales, The Pilot, The Red Rover	& Thomas Philbrick	1991
55		Early Works		1991
56		Later Works		1991
57		Stories, Poems, and Other Writings		1991
58		Writings 1878–1899		1992
59		Main Street & Babbitt		1992
60		Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays 1852–1890		1992
61		Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays 1891–1910		1992
62	various	The Debate on the Constitution: Part One		1993
63	various	The Debate on the Constitution: Part Two		1993
64		Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain & America		1993
65		Collected Travel Writings: The Continent		1993
66	various	American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1		1993
67	various	American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 2		1993
68		Autobiography		1994
69		Novels and Stories		1994
70		Collected Poems and Translations	& Paul Kane	1994
71		Historical Romances		1994
72		Novels and Stories 1932–1937	& Elaine A. Steinbeck	1994
73		Novels 1942–1954	& Noel Polk	1994
74		Novels and Stories		1995
75		Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings		1995
76		Collected Writings		1995
77	various	Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938–1944	Advisory Board: Samuel Hynes, Anne Matthews, et al.	1995
78	various	Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1944–1946	Advisory Board: Samuel Hynes, Anne Matthews, et al.	1995
79		Stories and Early Novels		1995
80		Later Novels and Other Writings		1995
81		Collected Poems, Prose & Plays	& Mark Richardson	1995
82		Complete Stories 1892–1898	, David Bromwich, Denis Donoghue Denis Donoghue Denis Donoghue is an Irish literary critic. He is currently the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University....	1996
83		Complete Stories 1898–1910	, David Bromwich, Denis Donoghue Denis Donoghue Denis Donoghue is an Irish literary critic. He is currently the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University....	1996
84		Travels and Other Writings		1996
85		U.S.A.	& Daniel Aaron	1996
86		The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936–1941	& Elaine A. Steinbeck	1996
87		Novels and Memoirs 1943–1951		1996
88		Novels 1955–1962		1996
89		Novels 1969–1974		1996
90		Writings and Drawings		1996
91		Writings		1997
92		Nature Writings		1997
93		Novels and Other Writings		1997
94	various	Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s		1997
95	various	Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s		1997
96		Collected Poetry and Prose	& Joan Richardson	1997
97		Early Novels and Stories		1998
98		Collected Essays		1998
99		Writings 1903–1932	& Catharine R. Stimpson	1998
100		Writings 1932–1946	& Catharine R. Stimpson	1998
101		Complete Novels	& Michael Kreyling	1998
102		Stories, Essays, & Memoirs	& Michael Kreyling	1998
103		Three Gothic Novels		1998
104	various	Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959–1969	Advisory board: Milton J. Bates, Lawrence Lichty, et al.	1998
105	various	Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969–1975	Advisory board: Milton J. Bates, Lawrence Lichty, et al.	1998
106		Complete Stories 1874–1884		1999
107		Complete Stories 1884–1891		1999
108	various	American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr.		1999
109		Writings		1999
110		Complete Novels		1999
111		Complete Stories 1864–1874		1999
112		Novels 1957–1962	(notes by Joseph Blotner)	1999
113		Writings & Drawings		1999
114	various	Slave Narratives	& Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He was the first African American to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and...	2000
115	various	American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. 1	Advisory board: Robert Hass Robert Hass Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:... , John Hollander John Hollander John Hollander is a Jewish-American poet and literary critic. As of 2007, he is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University... , et al.	2000
116	various	American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. 2	Advisory board: Robert Hass Robert Hass Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:... , John Hollander John Hollander John Hollander is a Jewish-American poet and literary critic. As of 2007, he is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University... , et al.	2000
117		Novels and Stories 1920–1922		2000
118		Poems and Other Writings		2000
119		Plays 1937–1955	& Kenneth Holditch	2000
120		Plays 1957–1980	& Kenneth Holditch	2000
121		Collected Stories 1891–1910		2001
122		Collected Stories 1911–1937		2001
123	various	The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence		2001
124		Collected Essays and Poems		2001
125		Crime Stories and Other Writings		2001
126		Novels 1930–1942		2001
127		Novels 1944–1962		2001
128		Complete Novels		2001
129		Writings		2001
130		The Gilded Age and Later Novels		2002
131		Stories, Novels, and Essays		2002
132		Novels 1942–1952		2002
133		Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Dodsworth		2002
134		The Sheltering Sky, Let It Come Down, The Spider's House		2002
135		Complete Stories & Later Writings		2002
136		Complete Novels & Stories		2002
137	various	Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941–1963	Advisory board: Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson is an African American professor of history at Stanford University, and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985 he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther... , David J. Garrow, Bill Kovach, Carol Polsgrove	2003
138	various	Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1963–1973	Advisory board: Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson is an African American professor of history at Stanford University, and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985 he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther... , David J. Garrow, Bill Kovach, Carol Polsgrove	2003
139		Novels 1896–1899		2003
140		An American Tragedy		2003
141		Novels 1944–1953		2003
142		Novels 1920–1925		2003
143		Travel Books and Other Writings		2003
144		Poems and Translations		2003
145		Writings		2004
146		Three Western Narratives		2004
147		Democracy in America		2004
148		Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy		2004
149		Stories Vol. 1		2004
150		Stories Vol. 2		2004
151		Stories Vol. 3		2004
152	& Co.	Broadway Comedies		2004
153		The Rough Riders and an Autobiography		2004
154		Letters and Speeches		2004
155		Tales		2005
156		Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys		2005
157		Novels and Stories 1959–1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories/Letting Go		2005
158		Novels 1967–1972: When She Was Good/Portnoy's Complaint/Our Gang/The Breast		2005
159		Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, A Death in the Family, Shorter Fiction		2005
160		Film Writing and Selected Journalism		2005
161		Two Years Before the Mast Two Years Before the Mast Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the same name was released in 1946.- Background :...  & Other Voyages		2005
162		Novels 1901–1902		2006
163		Collected Plays 1944–1961		2006
164		Novels 1926–1929: Soldiers' Pay/Mosquitoes/Flags in the Dust/The Sound and the Fury	& Noel Polk	2006
165		Novels 1973–1977: The Great American Novel/My Life as a Man/The Professor of Desire		2006
166	various	American Speeches: Revolution to Civil War		2006
167	various	American Speeches: Lincoln to Clinton		2006
168		Complete Poems and Selected Letters		2006
169		Bellow: Novels 1956–1964		2007
170		Travels With Charlie and later novels, 1947–1962	& Brian Railsback	2007
171		Writings, with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the English Settlement of America		2007
172		Collected Plays and Writings on Theater		2007
173		Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle/The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Ubik		2007
174		Road Novels: 1957–1960		2007
175		Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue; Novels 1979–1985: The Ghost Writer/Zuckerman Unbound/The Anatomy Lesson/The Prague Orgy		2007
176		Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s: The Shores of Light / Axel's Castle / Uncollected Reviews		2007
177		Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1930s & 40s: The Triple Thinkers, The Wound and the Bow, Classics and Commercials, Uncollected Reviews		2007
178	various	American Poetry: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries		2007
179		Early Novels and Stories: Bright Center of Heaven / They Came Like Swallows / The Folded Leaf / Time Will Darken It / Stories 1938–1956		2008
180		Poems, Prose and Letters	& Lloyd Schwartz Lloyd Schwartz Lloyd Schwartz is an American poet who is Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston...	2008
181		World War II Writings: The Road Back to Paris /Mollie and Other War Pieces / Uncollected War Journalism / Normandy Revisited		2008
182	various	American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau	(foreword by Al Gore Al Gore Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.... )	2008
183		Five Novels of the 1960s and 70s: Martian Time-Slip / Dr. Bloodmoney / Now Wait for Last Year / Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said / A Scanner Darkly		2008
184		Later Novels and Stories: The Château / So Long, See You Tomorrow / Stories and Improvisations 1957–1999		2008
185		Novels and Other Narratives 1986 - 1991: The Counterlife / The Facts / Deception / Patrimony		2008
186		Collected Stories and Other Writings		2008
187		Collected Poems 1956–1987		2008
188		Collected Stories and Other Writings		2009
189		Complete Novels		2009
190		American Writings: Some Chinese Ghosts / Chita / Two Years in the French West Indies / Youma / Selected Journalism and Letters		2009
191		The Sweet Science and Other Writings		2009
192	various	The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now		2009
193		VALIS and Later Novels		2009
194		The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels		2009
195		Collected Stories	& Maureen P. Carroll	2009
196	various	American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps		2009
197	various	American Fantastic Tales: 1940s to Now		2009
198		Writings		2010
199	various	The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works		2010
200		A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels		2010
201		Selected Journals 1820–1842		2010
202		Selected Journals 1841–1877		2010
203	various	The American Stage: Writing on Theater from Washington Irving Washington Irving Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...  to Tony Kushner Tony Kushner Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...		2010
204		Novels 1993-1995: Operation Shylock / Sabbath's Theater		2010
205		Novels and Stories		2010
206		Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series		2010
207		Prejudices: Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Series		2010
208		The Affluent Society and Other Writings 1952–1967		2010
209		Novels 1970-1982: Mr. Sammler's Planet / Humboldt's Gift / The Dean's December		2010
210		Gods' Man, Madman's Drum, Wild Pilgrimage		2010
211		Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, Vertigo		2010
212	various	The Civil War: The First Year Told by Those Who Lived It		2011
213		Revolutionary Writings 1755-1775		2011
214		Revolutionary Writings 1775-1783		2011
215		Novels 1903-1911		2011
216		Novels and Stories 1963–1973		2011
217	various	Harlem Renaissance Novels: Five Novels of the 1920s		2011
218	various	Harlem Renaissance Novels: Five Novels of the 1930s		2011
219		The Devil's Dictionary The Devil's Dictionary The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical "reference" book written by Ambrose Bierce. The book offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language, lampooning cant and political doublespeak, as well as other aspects of human foolishness and frailty. It was originally published in 1906 as The... , Tales, & Memoirs		2011
220		The American Trilogy 1997–2000		2011
221	various	The Civil War: The Second Year Told by Those Who Lived It		2012
222		The Guns of August, The Proud Tower		2012
223		Collected Plays 1964–1982		2012
224		The Eighth Day, Theophilus North, & Autobiographical Writings		2012

Special anthologies

• Writing New York (Philip Lopate, ed. 1998) ISBN 978-1-883011-62-8
• American Sea Writing (Peter Neill, ed. 2000) ISBN 978-1-883011-83-3
• Baseball (Nicholas Dawidoff
  Nicholas Dawidoff
  Nicholas Dawidoff is an American writer.Dawidoff was born in New York City, and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut with his mother and sister....
  
  , ed. 2002) ISBN 978-1-931082-09-9
• Writing Los Angeles (David L. Ulin, ed. 2002) ISBN 978-1-931082-27-3
• Americans in Paris (Adam Gopnik
  Adam Gopnik
  Adam Gopnik, is an American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife...
  
  , ed. 2004) ISBN 1-931082-56-1
• American Writers at Home (J.D. McClatchy
  J.D. McClatchy
  J. D. "Sandy" McClatchy is an American poet and literary critic. He is editor of the Yale Review and president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.-Life:...
  
  , author, Erica Lennar, photographer 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-75-4
• American Movie Critics (Phillip Lopate, ed. 2006) ISBN 978-1-931082-92-1
• American Religious Poems (Harold Bloom
  Harold Bloom
  Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
  
   and Jesse Zuba, eds., 2006) ISBN 978-1-931082-74-7
• American Food Writing (Molly O'Neill, ed., 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-005-6; (paperback, 2009) ISBN 1-59853-041-0
• True Crime: An American Anthology (Harold Schechter, ed., 2008) ISBN 978-1-59853-031-5
• Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing (Ilan Stavans, ed., 2009) ISBN 978-1-59853-051-3
• At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing (George Kimball
  George Edward Kimball
  George E. Kimball III was an American author and journalist who spent 25 years as a sports columnist for the Boston Herald before retiring in 2005...
  
   and John Schulian, eds., 2011) ISBN 978-1-59853-092-6
• Into the Blue: American Writers on Aviation and Spaceflight
• The 50 Funniest American Writers* (*according to Andy Borowitz): A Humor Anthology from Mark Twain to The Onion

American Poets Project

• James Agee
  James Agee
  James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
  
  : Selected Poems (Andrew Hudgins, editor 2008) ISBN 978-1-59853-032-2
• American Sonnets (David Bromwich
  David Bromwich
  -Career:Having graduated from Yale with a B.A. in 1973 and a Ph.D. four years later, he became an instructor at Princeton University, where he was promoted to Mellon Professor of English before returning to Yale in 1988. From 1995 he served as the Housum Professor of English at Yale...
  
  , editor 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-015-5
• American Wits: An Anthology of Light Verse (John Hollander
  John Hollander
  John Hollander is a Jewish-American poet and literary critic. As of 2007, he is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University...
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-49-5
• A. R. Ammons: Selected Poems (David Lehman
  David Lehman
  David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.-Career:...
  
  , editor 2006) ISBN 978-1-931082-93-8
• John Berryman
  John Berryman
  John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
  
  : Selected Poems (Kevin Young
  Kevin Young (poet)
  Kevin Young is an American poet and teacher of poetry. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University , and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective...
  
  , editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-69-3
• The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks
  Gwendolyn Brooks
  Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.-Biography:...
  
  (Elizabeth Alexander, editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-87-7
• Stephen Crane
  Stephen Crane
  Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
  
  : Complete Poems (Christopher Benfey
  Christopher Benfey
  Christopher Benfey is an American literary critic and Emily Dickinson scholar. He is the Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College.-Background:...
  
  , editor 2011) ISBN 978-1-59853-093-3
• Kenneth Fearing
  Kenneth Fearing
  Kenneth Fearing was an American poet, novelist, and founding editor of the Partisan Review. Literary critic Macha Rosenthal called him "the chief poet of the American Depression."-Early life:...
  
  : Selected Poems (Robert Polito, editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-57-0
• Stephen Foster
  Stephen Foster
  Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
  
   & Co.: Lyrics of America's First Great Popular Songs (Ken Emerson, editor 2010) ISBN 978-1-59853-070-4
• Ira Gershwin
  Ira Gershwin
  Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
  
  : Selected Lyrics (Robert Kimball, editor 2009) ISBN 978-1-59853-052-0
• Kenneth Koch
  Kenneth Koch
  Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...
  
  : Selected Poems (Ron Padgett
  Ron Padgett
  Ron Padgett is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. Bean Spasms, Padget's first collection of poems, was published in 1967 and written with Ted Berrigan...
  
  , editor 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-006-3
• Emma Lazarus
  Emma Lazarus
  Lazarus began to be more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel, Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms in the early 1880s. This led Lazarus to write articles on the subject. She also began translating the works of Jewish poets into English...
  
  : Selected Poems (John Hollander
  John Hollander
  John Hollander is a Jewish-American poet and literary critic. As of 2007, he is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University...
  
  , editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-77-8
• Amy Lowell
  Amy Lowell
  Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.- Personal life:...
  
  : Selected Poems (Honor Moore, editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-70-9
• Samuel Menashe
  Samuel Menashe
  Samuel Menashe was an American poet. Born in New York City as Samuel Menashe Weisberg, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Menashe grew up in Elmhurst, Queens, and graduated from Townsend Harris High School and Queens College. During World War II he served in the US Army infantry, and in...
  
  : New and Selected Poems (Christopher Ricks
  Christopher Ricks
  Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 2004...
  
  , editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-85-3
• Edna St. Vincent Millay
  Edna St. Vincent Millay
  Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
  
  : Selected Poems (J.D. McClatchy
  J.D. McClatchy
  J. D. "Sandy" McClatchy is an American poet and literary critic. He is editor of the Yale Review and president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.-Life:...
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-35-8
• Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
  
  : Poems and Poetics (Richard Wilbur
  Richard Wilbur
  Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-51-8
• Poems from the Women's Movement (Honor Moore
  Honor Moore
  Honor Moore is an American writer of poetry, creative nonfiction and plays.She is the author of three collections of poems: Red Shoes, Darling, and Memoir; two works of nonfiction, The White Blackbird and The Bishop's Daughter; and the play Mourning Pictures, which was produced on Broadway and...
  
  , editor 2009) ISBN 978-1-59853-042-1
• Poets of the Civil War (J.D. McClatchy
  J.D. McClatchy
  J. D. "Sandy" McClatchy is an American poet and literary critic. He is editor of the Yale Review and president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.-Life:...
  
  , editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-76-1
• Poets of World War II (Harvey Shapiro, editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-33-4
• Cole Porter
  Cole Porter
  Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
  
  : Selected Lyrics (Robert Kimball, editor 2006) ISBN 978-1-931082-94-5
• Theodore Roethke
  Theodore Roethke
  Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
  
  : Selected Poems (Edward Hirsch
  Edward Hirsch
  Edward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published eight books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems , which brings together thirty-five years of work. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial...
  
  , editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-78-5
• Muriel Rukeyser
  Muriel Rukeyser
  Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...
  
  : Selected Poems (Adrienne Rich
  Adrienne Rich
  Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
  
  , editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-58-7
• Carl Sandburg
  Carl Sandburg
  Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
  
  : Selected Poems (Paul Berman
  Paul Berman
  Paul Berman is an American writer. His articles have been published in numerous periodicals, such as: The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and Slate...
  
  , editor 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-100-8
• Anne Stevenson
  Anne Stevenson
  Anne Stevenson is an American-British poet and writer.-Life:Stevenson's parents Louise Destler Stevenson and C.L. Stevenson met at a Cincinnati High School. They were living in Cambridge, England, where Charles was studying philosophy under I. A. Richards and Wittgenstein, when their first...
  
  : Selected Poems (Andrew Motion
  Andrew Motion
  Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...
  
  , editor 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-018-6
• Karl Shapiro
  Karl Shapiro
  Karl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.-Biography:...
  
  : Selected Poems (John Updike
  John Updike
  John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-34-1
• Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
  
  : Selected Poems (Louis Auchincloss
  Louis Auchincloss
  Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a prolific novelist who parlayed his firsthand knowledge into dozens of finely wrought books exploring the private lives of America's East Coast patrician class...
  
  , editor 2005) ISBN 978-1-931082-86-0
• Walt Whitman
  Walt Whitman
  Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
  
  : Selected Poems (Harold Bloom
  Harold Bloom
  Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-32-7
• John Greenleaf Whittier
  John Greenleaf Whittier
  John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
  
  : Selected Poems (Brenda Wineapple, editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-59-4
• William Carlos Williams
  William Carlos Williams
  William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
  
  : Selected Poems (Robert Pinsky
  Robert Pinsky
  Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
  
  , editor 2004) ISBN 978-1-931082-71-6
• Yvor Winters
  Yvor Winters
  Arthur Yvor Winters was an American poet and literary critic.-As modernist:Winters's early poetry, which appeared in small avant-garde magazines alongside work by writers like James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, was written in the modernist idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American...
  
  : Selected Poems (Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
  
  , editor 2003) ISBN 978-1-931082-50-1
• Louis Zukofsky
  Louis Zukofsky
  Louis Zukofsky was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.-Life:...
  
  : Selected Poems (Charles Bernstein
  Charles Bernstein
  Charles Bernstein is an American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language poets . In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American...
  
  , editor 2006) ISBN 978-1-931082-95-2

Special Publications

• Isaac Bashevis Singer: An Album (Ilan Stavans, editor, 2004) ISBN 1-931082-62-2
• Manny Farber
  Manny Farber
  Emanuel "Manny" Farber was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic" , Farber developed a distinctive prose style and set of theoretical stances which have had a large influence on later generations of film critics; Susan Sontag considered him to be "the...
  
  , Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (Robert Polito, editor, 2009) ISBN 978-1-59853-050-6
• John Updike
  John Updike
  John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
  
  , Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams
  Ted Williams
  Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...
  
  (2010) ISBN 978-1-59853-071-1

External links

• The Library of America official web site
• The Library of America's Main Catalog
  • The LoA's Catalog by Series number
• The Library of America's American Poets Project
• http://singer100.loa.org/The Library of America's Isaac Bashevis Singer
  Isaac Bashevis Singer
  Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
  
   web site]
• The Library of America's "Reporting Civil Rights" web site
• http://loa.org/chesnutt/The Library of America's Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles W. Chesnutt
  Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, where the legacy of slavery and interracial relations had resulted in many free...
  
   web site]
• http://www.loa.org/dawnpowell/The Library of America's Dawn Powell
  Dawn Powell
  Dawn Powell was an American writer of novels and stories.-Biography:Powell was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, a village 45 miles north of Columbus and the county seat of Morrow County. Powell regularly gave her birth year as 1897 but primary documents support the earlier date...
  
  web site]