1820 to Reconstruction

About the Anthology

Covering American literature from its pre-contact Indigenous beginnings through the Reconstruction period, the first two volumes of The Broadview Anthology of American Literature represent a substantial reconceiving of the canon of early American literature. Guided by the latest scholarship in American literary studies, and deeply committed to inclusiveness, social responsibility, and rigorous contextualization, the anthology balances representation of widely agreed-upon major works with an emphasis on American literature’s diversity, variety, breadth, and connections with the rest of the Americas.

Volume A, which covers Beginnings to 1820, is available separately or packaged together with Volume B. Volumes covering Reconstruction to the Present will be published in 2024.

Highlights of Volume B: 1820 to Reconstruction

• • Complete texts of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; and Benito Cereno
• • In-depth, Contexts sections on such topics as “Nature and the Environment,” “Expansion, Native American Expulsion, and Manifest Destiny,” “Gender and Sexuality,” and “Oratory”
• • Broader and more extensive coverage of African American oral literature than in competing anthologies
• • Full author sections in the anthology are devoted to authors such as George Moses Horton, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, José Maria Heredia, Black Hawk, and many others