Chapter 1: Early American Literature to 1700
and Puritanism

Index

© Paul P. Reuben

September 12, 2019

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new.gif  Society of Early Americanists Members’ Favorite early American novels as of July 2019

Selected Bibliography
Introduction
The Bay Psalm Book &
The New England Primer
Native American Oral Literature

William Bradford
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Hutchinson
Cotton Mather
Thomas Morton
Mary Rowlandson
Samuel Sewall

Thomas Shepard
John Smith
Edward Taylor
Michael Wigglesworth
John Williams
Roger Williams
John Winthrop





























SEA Members’ Favorite early American novels as of July 2019

Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry (“important, if flawed”)
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (“crazy”), Arthur Mervyn (“global commerce” and “raced bodies,” pairs nicely with Wollstonecraft Mary and Maria and M. Shelley Matilda), and Edgar Huntly ( “Poe before Poe,” “so very clever”)
The Female American; Or, The Adventures of Unca Eliza Winkfield
Lydia Maria Child (“infinitely fascinating”), Hobomok and Romance of the Republic
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (“realism and romance,” “contemporary relevance”)
Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette
Jesse L. Holman, The Prisoners of Niagara, or Errors of Education
Peter Markoe, The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania (“global context”)
Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple (“dramatizes coercion and its aftermath”)
Rebecca Rush, Kelroy (“the villain[ess], of course!”)
Leonora Sansay, Secret History
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie (“engaging,” “perfect segue to teaching William Apess’ A Son of the Forest”)
Tabitha Tenney, Female Quixotism (“progressive and uncompromising,” “so very funny”)
Royall Tyler, The Algerine Captive
Sukey Vickery, Emily Hamilton
Sally Wood, Amelia
 
And a few selections from after my (arbitrary and unstated) cut-off date of 1840: Arthur Gordon Pym, The Hidden Hand, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, Gravity’s Rainbow, Beloved, Portrait of a Lady, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party. Ana Schwartz made a great case for Edith Wharton.
 
Marion Rust
Editor, Early American Literature
https://english.as.uky.edu/eal-journal
Professor
Department of English
University of Kentucky