Book Description

Excerpt from American Literature in the Colonial and National Periods The division of the subject made in the title seems warranted by the difference between ideas which pre vailed in the first century and three-quarters and those in the remainder of the three centuries, almost, during which english-speaking people have lived and written in this country. In the first period the manner of life and thought was that of British colonists; in the last, that of American citizens. The transition was not immediate in letters, as it was not in politics, but the quarter century during which independence was first devised and declared, and then won and acknowledged, contained a point where the dividing line may be drawn between two diverse literary periods. For convenience, 1783, the date of the Paris treaty, may serve as well as any. Further division has not been deemed essential to the present purpose. This purpose is to indicate, by mention of leading authors and their works, the growth of letters in Amer ica, from such efforts as the earliest English immigrants were able to make, with the attainments they brought from home, down to achievements by citizens of a nation old enough to have a literature of its own, however much it may be indebted to treasures in other lands. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.