American literature: Quick Facts

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John Smith: Map of Virginia

The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

Poor Richard's almanac

Nineteenth-century engraved portrait of Washington Irving, shown with curly hair, a high-collared shirt, and a coat with a fur collar.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Illustration of the Walden Pond cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe, c. 1880

Walt Whitman, c. 1870

American humorists, 1868

How did Phillis Wheatley become a poet?

Discover science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's views on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”

The video thumbnail image shows a black and white image of Robert Frost against a sepia-toned background.

An image of Joy Harjo, a Native American woman, imposed on a background of a notebook. A blue arrow points to Harjo with the label 'poet laureate.'

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Topics

deep image poet lyric fiction African American literature Periods of American Literature 13 Great Indigenous Writers to Read and Celebrate Pulitzer Prize The Science Behind Project Hail Mary 9 American Countercultural Books Muckraker poet laureate English literature French literature African literature Arabic literature Italian literature German literature Spanish literature Japanese literature Latin American literature Chinese literature

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Key People

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Lloyd Alexander

American author

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Marchette Chute

American author

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Albert Halper

American author

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Elizabeth Enright

American author

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Norton Juster

American author

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Will James

American author

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Esther Forbes

American author

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Laura E. Richards

American author

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Eric Knight

American author

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James Goldman

American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist

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Charles Edward Russell

American writer

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Ruth Sawyer

American writer

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Martin E. Johnson

American adventurer and photographer

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Emerson Hough

American author and journalist

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Pat Conroy

American writer

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Richard Lockridge

American mystery writer

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Elizabeth Coatsworth

American author

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Ludwig Bemelmans

American author

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John Martin

American dance critic

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Joseph Krumgold

American author

Emily Dickinson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right

Emily Dickinson

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines