From Puritanism to Postmodernism

Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) was Professor of Literature and American Studies first at the University of Birmingham (1961-65) and then at the University of East Anglia from 1970 until his retirement in 1995. Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to literature.Richard Ruland is Professor Emeritus of English, American, and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. After teaching in the English and American Studies programs at Yale University for several years, he has been a member of the English Department faculty at Washington University from 1967 until his recent retirement.

"Rarely has the national literature been made to cohere so convincingly: Ruland and Bradbury proceed smoothly from writer to writer, at every turn drawing illuminating connections…An elegant book." The Washington Post"Highly informative…a map of American literature that puts every writer in place."The New York Times"This is an excellent and readable survey of nearly 300 years of American writing and literary criticism in a flowing style that shows no signs of the tremendous concentration of information. Sure to become a classic; for general and special literature collections."Library Journal"…a sound, balanced account of how American writers created works that reflected a new nation with new experience, a new science and a new politics on a new continent,…this is a comprehensive, often vibrant history of how American writers declared independence from older European forms before making their own unique contributions to world literature."Kirkus Reviews

• Preface to the Routledge Classics edition – Richard Ruland Foreword to the Routledge Classics edition – Linda Wagner MartinPrefacePart I The Literature of British America1. The Puritan Legacy 2. Awakening and Enlightenment Part II From Colonial Oppressor to Cultural Province3. Revolution and (In)dependence4. American Naissance 5. Yea-saying and Nay-sayingPart III Native and Cosmopolitan Crosscurrents: from Local Color to Realism and Naturalism6. Secession and Loyalty7. Muckrakers and Early Moderns Part IV Modernism in the American Grain8. Outland Darts and Homemade Worlds9. The Second Flowering10. Radical Reassessments11. Strange Realities, Adequate FictionsEpilogue - American Literary History in 1998: A Conversation with Josef Jar?b and Richard Ruland in PragueIndex