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American Critical Archives is a series of reference books that provide representative selections of contemporary reviews of the main works of major American authors. Each volume contains full reviews and excerpts from reviews that appeared in newspapers and weekly and monthly periodicals, generally within a few months of the publication of the work concerned. There is an introductory historical overview by the volume editor, as well as checklists of additional reviews located but not quoted.

  • Associate Editors: M. Thomas Inge, Randolph-Macon College

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9 results in American Critical Archives

Stephen Crane
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • George Monteiro
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    13 August 2009
  • Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was a controversial figure in American literature and journalism. In a literary career that lasted a mere decade he produced short stories, novellas, novels and poetry for which he was both lauded and reviled. With The Red Badge of Courage he entered the American canon. Despite Crane's lack of experience of war at the time of the novel's composition, it is a classic of realist war fiction. This book presents a representative selection of the reviews of Stephen Crane's books, beginning with the publication of his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), through the posthumously published last novel, The O'Ruddy (1903). Many of the reviews will be new to Crane scholars. The volume offers readers an insight into how Crane's reputation was formed and how it changed during his lifetime, ending with the shifts in emphasis upon his early death.

Ellen Glasgow
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Dorothy M. Scura
  • Published online:
    04 May 2010
    Print publication:
    25 September 1992
  • This book reprints contemporaneous reviews of Ellen Glasgow's books as they were published between 1897 and 1943. Book reviews, originally printed in newspapers and other periodicals in the USA and in England, tell the story of Glasgow's critical reception during her long and productive career. Nineteen novels as well as a volume of poetry, one of her short stories, and one of criticism, were published during her lifetime. Her first book, published anonymously in 1897, elicited much attention when it was revealed that the author was a young Richmond woman. By the time of the 1943 publication of her volume of literary criticism, A Certain Measure, she was a much-respected and much-honoured author, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and other awards.

John Steinbeck
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Joseph R. McElrath, Jr, Jesse S. Crisler, Susan Shillinglaw
  • Published online:
    03 May 2010
    Print publication:
    13 June 1996
  • This volume is the first to collect the critical responses of Steinbeck's generation to his many fiction and nonfiction works, as they appeared from the late 1920s on. The articles trace the record of Steinbeck's progress through the 1930s and go on to reflect his steady series of achievements through the 1960s, including his attainment of the Nobel Prize in 1962. These articles offer at last a means of seeing Steinbeck's writings as they were perceived by his contemporaries, whose task it was first to evaluate and interpret them for an ever-growing readership.

Herman Melville
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Brian Higgins, Hershel Parker
  • Published online:
    01 April 2010
    Print publication:
    27 October 1995
  • Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews reprints virtually all the known contemporary reviews of Herman Melville's writings from the 1840s until his death in 1891. Many of his reviews are reprinted from hard-to-locate contemporary newspapers and periodicals. These materials document the response of the reviewers to specific worlds and share the course of Melville's nineteenth century reputation as travel writer, romancer, short-story writer, and poet.

Emerson and Thoreau
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Joel Myerson
  • Published online:
    23 March 2010
    Print publication:
    26 June 1992
  • The American Critical Archives was a series of reference books that provide representative selection of contemporary reviews of the main works of major American authors. Specifically each volume contains both full reviews and excerpts from reviews that appeared in newspapers and weekly and monthly periodicals generally within a few months of the publication of the work concerned. There is an introductory historical overview by the volume editor, as well as checklists of additional reviews located but not quoted. This book represents the first comprehensive collection of contemporary reviews of the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Many of the reviews are reprinted from hard-to-locate contemporary newspapers and periodicals.

T. S. Eliot
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Jewel Spears Brooker
  • Published online:
    10 March 2010
    Print publication:
    10 May 2004
  • Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential poets of the twentieth century, T. S. Eliot was also extremely prolific. T. S. Eliot: The Contemporary Reviews is a testament to both these aspects of Eliot's work. In it, Jewel Spears Brooker presents the most comprehensive gathering of newspaper and magazine reviews of Eliot's work ever assembled. It includes reviews from both American and British journals. Brooker expands on the major themes of the reviews and shows how the reviews themselves influenced not only Eliot, but also literary history in the twentieth century.

Eudora Welty
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Pearl Amelia McHaney
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    31 March 2005
  • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty's writing and photography were the subject of more than one thousand reviews, of which over two hundred are collected here. From the first, reviewers loved Welty's language and disparaged her lack of plot. Their eager anticipation for the next book is rarely diminished by the shock of reading entirely different styles of writing. Her work was admired even as it challenged its readers. The reviews selected for reprinting here represent the diversity of Welty's reception and assessment. Reviews from small towns, urban centers, noted fiction writers, professional reviewers, academics, and everyday readers are included. The comments of reviewing rivals such as the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, Nation and New Yorker, when read side by side, reveal the nuances both of the reviewers and of the work of this important Southern writer.

Louisa May Alcott
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by Beverly Lyon Clark
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    19 February 2004
  • This collection of nineteenth-century reviews provides a wealth of information for scholars interested in Alcott (increasing the number of indexed reviews almost tenfold) but also insight into the ways in which reading audiences were constructed in the nineteenth-century United States. The reviews provide a window on to nineteenth-century attitudes toward popular fiction and toward women writers. The author of the novels and of sensational tales, of travel writing and of temperance tracts, Alcott was both highly popular and highly respected. Her works were reviewed not just in magazines for children, but also in the most prestigious literary journals of the day.

William Faulkner
  • The Contemporary Reviews
  • Edited by M. Thomas Inge
  • Published online:
    07 September 2009
    Print publication:
    24 February 1995
  • A comprehensive collection of contemporary published reactions to the writing of William Faulkner from 1926 to 1962, these articles document the response of reviewers to specific works, and chronicle the development of Faulkner's reputation among the nation's book reviewers. It has often been assumed that a poor reception in the popular review publications contributed to Faulkner's lack of commercial success. The material presented here tends to refute that assumption, clarifying the development of Faulkner's literary career and providing a fuller understanding of the part played by book reviewing in the sales, promotion and success of American literature.