ENGLISH AMERICAN

LITERATURE
American literature, the body of written works produced in the English language in the
United States.

AUTHORS Literature has existed in the Americas for as long as the

Toni Morrison people who lived there have been telling stories. Native
1931–2019 American cultures have a rich history of oral literature.

James Baldwin Mayan books from as far back as the 5th century are
1924–1987

Lee known, and it is believed that the Maya started writing
Harper
1926–2016 things down centuries before that. As a specific
James Fenimore Cooper discipline viewed through the lens of European

1789–1851
Anne Bradstreet
literature, American literature began in the early 17th
1612–1672 century with the arrival of English-speaking Europeans
Robert Penn Warren in what would become the United States.
1905–1989
John Steinbeck
1902–1968 Edgar Allan Poe

Ralph Ellison
(Writer and Poet - Widely Regarded as a Central Figure of Romanticism in
1914–1994 the United States)
Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthdate: January 19, 1809
1804–1864 Sun Sign: Capricorn
William Hill Brown Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
1765–1793 Died: October 7, 1849

American writer Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as the architect of modern

Kate Chopin
1850–1904 short story, the inventor of the detective-fiction genre and a major
Stanley Elkin contributor towards science fiction genre. The influential writer is
1930–1995 recognised for his tales of mystery and macabre. His notable works
Henry James include The Raven (poem), The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of
1843–1916 Usher (short stories).
Theodore Dreiser

1871–1945 Ernest Hemingway

Washington Irving
(American Literary Icon Who Was Known for His Straightforward Prose & Use
1783–1859
Ralph Waldo Emerson of Understatement)

1803–1882 Birthdate: July 21, 1899

Henry Miller Sun Sign: Cancer
1891–1980 Birthplace: Oak Park, Illinois, United States
Ezra Pound Died: July 2, 1961
1885–1972 Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist and short-story writer who had
Jane Austen a strong impact on 20th-century fiction. He published seven novels and six
1775 – 1817. short-story collections and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. A
William Blake Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea are
1757-1827 some of his classic works. He ended his own life in July 1961.
Geoffrey Chaucer
1343-1400 Dr. Seuss
John Donne (Children's Author And Illustrator)
1572-1631 Birthdate: March 2, 1904
George Eliot Sun Sign: Pisces
1819-1880. Birthplace: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
John Milton Died: September 24, 1991
1608-1674
Dr. Seuss was an American children's author, illustrator, and political
George Orwell
cartoonist. He is credited with writing some of the most famous children's
1903-1950
books ever, including The Cat in the Hat. His works were translated into
Harold Pinter
1930-2008 over 20 languages and sold more than 600 million copies by the time of
his death. Many of his creations were adapted into animated cartoons.
Mark Twain
(Lauded as the 'Greatest Humorist' the United States Has Produced)
Birthdate: November 30, 1835
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Florida, Missouri, United States
Died: April 21, 1910
Mark Twain, “the father of American literature,” was one of the world’s greatest 19-th century
humorists and authors. His novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn were drawn from his childhood experiences in Missouri. In his later life, he sunk
into bankruptcy and also recovered.

James Baldwin
(Author Best Known for His Novel 'Go Tell It on the Mountain')
Birthdate: August 2, 1924
Sun Sign: Leo
Birthplace: Harlem, New York, United States
Died: December 1, 1987
Amongst the greatest writers of the 20th century and a leading literary voice in the civil rights
movement, James Baldwin extensively explored issues like race, sexuality and humanity in his work. His
best known work include his debut novel Go Tell It on the Mountain and his books of essays Notes of a
Native Son and Nobody Knows My Name.

Henry David Thoreau

(Naturalist, Philosopher & Author Of 'Walden'
Birthdate: July 12, 1817
Sun Sign: Cancer
Birthplace: Concord, Massachusetts, United States
Died: May 6, 1862
Henry David Thoreau was an American philosopher, essayist, poet, and naturalist. He is credited with
popularizing transcendentalism and simple living. His philosophy of civil disobedience, which was detailed
in his essay of the same name, later influenced world-renowned personalities like Leo Tolstoy, Martin
Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi.

Henry James
(15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916)
was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and
literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English
language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William
James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans,
English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include The Portrait of a Lady, The
Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove.

Eric Arthur Blair

(25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),
better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist,
and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to
totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell produced literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for
the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1949).
ERA IN ENGLISH
AMERICAN LITERATURE
The Romantic period (1830 to 1870)
Realism and Naturalism (1870 to 1910)
The Modernist period (1910 to 1945)
The Contemporary period (1945 to present)

EIGHT (8) MAJOR PERIODS' IN THE

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Period (450–1066)
The Anglo-Norman or Middle English period (1066–1500)
The Renaissance Period (1500–1660)
The Neoclassical Period (1660–1798)
The Romantic Period (1798–1837)
The Victorian Period (1837–1901)
The Modern Period (1901-1945)
The Contemporary Period (1945–Today)
 ENGLISH AMERICAN
LITERARY PIECES
The Raven and The Cask of Amontillado
"The Cask of Amontillado" (sometimes spelled "The Casque of Amontillado")
is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe,
first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book.

The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time in an unspecified year, is about a man taking fatal
revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-
century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around a person being buried alive – in this case, by
immurement. As in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", Poe conveys the story from the murderer's
perspective.

Moby Dick
wtittten by Herman Melville (1851)
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has one of the most recognizable opening lines of any American novel.
"Call me Ishmael." Everyone knows about Ishmael, Captain Ahab, and the Great White Whale.
In 1850 Herman Melville was an up-and-coming young author. He had published popular adventure tales
like Omoo, Typee, and Redburn, drawn in part from his experiences as a sailor in the South Pacific. But he
was ready to write something different. He had recently had a number of formative experiences—a tour of
Europe, a passionate encounter with the works of Shakespeare, and a new friendship with one of the most
prominent American literary figures of the day, Nathanial Hawthorne.

Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter, novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Published in 1850.
It is considered a masterpiece of American literature and a classic moral study.
The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester Prynne, a
young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Author is Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
published in April 1, 1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) published more than 30 books, but it was her best-selling
anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin that catapulted her to international celebrity and
secured her place in history.
In 1852, the serial was published as a two-volume book. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a runaway best-seller, selling 10,000 copies
in the United States in its first week; 300,000 in the first year; and in Great Britain, 1.5 million copies in one year. In the 19th
century, the only book to outsell Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the Bible.

The Great Gatsby

Francis Scott

Key Fitzgerald, (born September 24, 1896, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Died December 21, 1940, Hollywood, California),
American short-story writer and novelist famous for his depictions of the Jazz Age (the 1920s),
his most brilliant novel being The Great Gatsby (1925).

Of Mice and Men

Author is John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men
Published in February 6, 1937
Steinbeck was born and raised in the Salinas Valley, where his father was a county official and his mother a former
schoolteacher. A good student and president of his senior class in high school, Steinbeck attended Stanford intermittently
in the early 1920s. In 1925, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a manual laborer and a journalist while writing
stories and novels. His first two novels were not successful.
In 1930, he married Carol Henning, the first of his three wives

Beloved
Author is Toni Morrison
Published in 1987
Toni Morrison was an African American writer whose best-selling work explored black identity in
America. Among other things, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Beloved is the most famous work of Toni Morrison. It
examines the destructive legacy of slavery through the story of a family of former slaves whose
house is haunted by a malevolent spirit.

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Author is Ernest Hemingway
Published in 1952
Ernest Hemingway was one of the leading figures of 20th century literature. The last major work of fiction by
Hemingway that was published during his lifetime, The Old Man and the Sea is a short novel which tells the
story of an aging Cuban fisherman named Santiago who is involved in a struggle to catch a giant marlin far out
in the Gulf Stream.
INVISIBLE MAN
Author is Ralph Ellison
Published in 1952
Ralph Ellison was a novelist, literary critic and scholar who is most famous for writing this masterpiece. Invisible Man is
narrated by a nameless young black man who struggles to arrive at a conception of his own identity. Because the people
he encounters “see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination,” he is effectively invisible. The
prominent themes of the novel are racism as an obstacle to individual identity; the limitations of ideology; and the
danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype. Invisible Man won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953.

LITTLE WOMEN
Author is Louisa May Alcott
Published in 1868
Apart from being a renowned writer, Louisa May Alcott worked as a Civil War nurse, fought against slavery and
registered women to vote. Her best known work, Little Women, follows the lives of the four March sisters; Meg, Jo,
Beth, and Amy; and details their coming of age from childhood to womanhood. The novel is loosely based on the real
lives of Alcott and her three sisters.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

Author is J. D. Salinger
Published in 1951
Jerome David Salinger has been recognized as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His best known work, The
Catcher in the Rye, details two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school.
The Catcher in the Rye quickly attained cult status, especially among adolescent readers. The novel still remains
hugely popular selling more than 250,000 copies a year in paperback.

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Author is Mark Twain
Published in 1884
Mark Twain is renowned worldwide as one of the most influential writers in the English language. Such is his influence in
his nation that he has been called “the father of American literature”. This novel tells the story in first person of
Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, a street urchin whose father is a drunkard. Huck Finn is a friend of Tom Sawyer.