I believe that
the sketch contains enough detail to make it of some use as a
guide-book to our literature. Though meant to be mainly a history of
American _belles-lettres_ it makes some mention of historical and
political writings, {318} but hardly any of philosophical, scientific,
and technical works.

A chronological rather than a topical order has been followed, although
the fact that our best literature is of recent growth has made it
impossible to adhere as closely to a chronological plan as in the
English sketch. In the reading courses appended to the different
chapters I have named a few of the most important authorities in
American literary history, such as Duyckinck, Tyler, Stedman, and
Richardson.

HENRY A. BEERS.

{319}

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 1607-1765 . . . . . . . . . 321
II. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, 1765-1815 . . . . . . 365
III. THE ERA OF NATIONAL EXPANSION, 1815-1837 . . . . 400
IV. THE CONCORD WRITERS, 1837-1861 . . . . . . . . . 434
V. THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS, 1837-1861 . . . . . . . 472
VI. LITERATURE IN THE CITIES, 1837-1861 . . . . . . 511
VII. LITERATURE SINCE 1861 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
VIII. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS LITERATURE IN
AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609

{321}

OUTLINE SKETCH OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

1607-1765.

The writings of our colonial era have a much greater importance as
history than as literature. It would be unfair to judge of the
intellectual vigor of the English colonists in America by the books
that they wrote; those "stern men with empires in their brains" had
more pressing work to do than the making of books. The first settlers,
indeed, were brought face to face with strange and exciting
conditions--the sea, the wilderness, the Indians, the flora and fauna
of a new world--things which seem stimulating to the imagination, and
incidents and experiences which might have lent themselves easily to
poetry or romance. Of all these they wrote back to England reports
which were faithful and sometimes vivid, but which, upon the whole,
hardly rise into the region of literature. "New England," said
Hawthorne, "was then in a {322} state incomparably more picturesque
than at present." But to a contemporary th