Early in his life, former United States President Thomas Jefferson wrote on his gravestone: "Here was buried, Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence of the Statue of Virginia for religious freedom, Father of the University of Virginia." He wrote these texts at the beginning ...

Among the many comments received about the early selections collected in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, the plaintive comment, even from early Americanists, about the number of so-called new writers represented there strikes me as most honest and forthright. Indeed, more than a few coll...