The Origins of Literary Studies in America: A Documentary Anthology

Originally published in 1989, The Origins of Literary Studies in America brings together for the first time hard-to-find speeches, reports, and other writings by the founders of literary studies in the United States: Bliss Perry, Woodrow Wilson, Irving Babbitt, M. Carey Thomas, and many other scholars between 1874 and 1937.

The selections—on teaching, the MLA, and the goals of the discipline—are readable, accessible, often charming and amusing; what is most striking about them, however, is t...