The Oxford Book of American Essays

THE customary antithesis between "American" lit-erature and "English" literature is unfortunate and misleading in that it seems to exclude American au-thors from the noble roll of those who have contribut-ed to the literature of our mother-tongue. Of course, when we consider it carefully we cannot fail to see that the literature of a language is one and indivisible and that the nativity or the domicile of those who make it matters nothing. Just as Alexandrian literature is Greek, so America...