Writers of the American Renaissance

An A-to-Z Guide

Denise Knight

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9780313321405
• eBook ISBN:
  9780313017070
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literaturkritik

The American literary canon has undergone revision and expansion in recent years, and our notions of the 19th-century renaissance have been reevaluated. Mainstream anthologies have been revised to reflect the expanding literary canon, yet resources for readers have remained widely scattered. This book expands earlier definitions of the 19th-century American Renaissance as represented by canonical writers such as Emerson and Poe, covering writers who published popular fiction and dominated the literary marketplace of the day. Included is generous coverage of women writers and writers of color.

The volume provides alphabetically arranged entries for more than 70 writers of the period, including Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and many more.

Each entry was written by an expert contributor and includes a brief biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a survey of the writer's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)
• Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)
• William Apess (1798–1839)
• Robert Montgomery Bird (1806–1854)
• William Wells Brown (1814?–1884)
• William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
• Alice Cary (1820–1871)
• Phoebe Cary (1824–1871)
• William Ellery Channing (1780–1842)
• Caroline Chesebro' (1825–1873)
• Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880)
• James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
• Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813–1892)
• Maria Susanna Cummins (1827–1866)
• Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)
• Martin Robison Delany (1812–1885)
• Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
• Frederick Douglass (1818–1895)
• Emma Catherine Embury (1806–1863)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
• Fanny Fern [Sara Willis Parton] (1811–1872)
• Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)
• William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)
• Caroline Howard Gilman (1794–1888)
• Grace Greenwood [Sara Jane Clarke Lippincott] (1823–1904)
• Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
• Charlotte L. Forten Grimké (1837–1914)
• Sarah Grimké (1792–1873)
• Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879)
• Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
• George Washington Harris (1814–1869)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
• Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz (1800–1856)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)
• Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812–1848)
• Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910)
• Washington Irving (1783–1859)
• Harriet Ann Jacobs (c. 1813–1897)
• Sylvester Judd (1813–1853)
• Caroline M. Kirkland (1801–1864)
• Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
• George Lippard (1822–1854)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790–1870)
• James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
• Maria Jane Mclntosh (1803–1878)
• Herman Melville (1819–1891)
• Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806–1893)
• Frances Sargent Locke Osgood (1811–1850)
• Theodore Parker (1810–1860)
• Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1815–1852)
• Edgar Allen Poe (1809–1849)
• James Redpath (1833–1891)
• John Rollin Ridge (1827–1867)
• Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867)
• Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865)
• William Gilmore Simms (1806–1870)
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
• Maria W. Stewart (1803–1879)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
• Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)
• Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
• Thomas Bangs Thorpe (1815–1878)
• Henry Timrod (1828–1867)
• Sojourner Truth (c. 1797?–1883)
• Jones Very (1813–1880)
• Susan Warner (1819–1885)
• Frances Miriam Berry Whitcher (1812?–1852)
• James Monroe Whitfield (1822–1871)
• Sarah Helen Whitman (1803–1878)
• Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
• John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
• Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867)
• Harriet E. Wilson (1827?–1863?)
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• About the Contributors