Alfred Kazin
(1915–),literary critic, has taught at many American universities, but is best known for his critical works, On Native Grounds (1942), a study of American prose literature after Howells; The Inmost ...
American Literature
This entry contains two subentries: An Overview, Sea FictionAmerican sea literature has roots in Greek, Roman, Irish, and Norse mythology, the Bible, and the English Renaissance, whenever humans have ...
American Mercury
A monthly magazine founded in 1924 with H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan as editors. Urbanely scathing commentary on the social and cultural follies of contemporary America was Mencken's ...
Bulwark
Novel by Dreiser, posthumously published in 1946.Solon Barnes is the son of a Quaker farmer and tradesman who brings his family from Maine to a Quaker suburb of Philadelphia, where his quiet faith ...
Chicago Renaissance
An important step toward adequate recognition of black women writers, the Chicago Renaissance has attained increasing acceptance as a center of African-American culture between the end of the Harlem ...
David Mamet
(1947– ),Chicago‐born dramatist whose work is distinguished by its attentions to the rhythms of blue‐collar speech and the theme of how low‐life criminality mirrors the world of big business. ...
Edith Wharton
1862–1937)US novelist whose writing explores, through witty and satirical observation of the manners of fashionable society, the conflict between social duty and the aspirations of the ...
Financier
Novel by Dreiser, published in 1912 and revised in 1927. The story and its sequel The Titan are based on the career of C.T. Yerkes, a flamboyant financier of Philadelphia, Chicago, and London.[...]
Floyd Dell
(1887–1969) American novelistMoon-Calf (1920) FictionThe Briary-Bush (1921) FictionJanet March (1923) FictionRunaway (1925) FictionAn Old Man's Folly (1926) FictionAn Unmarried Father (1927) ...
Frank Norris
(1870–1902),American novelist. The influence of Zola and naturalism is seen in his best works, which include McTeague (1899), a tragic account of violence, greed, and treachery in San Francisco; and ...
“Genius,” The
Novel by Dreiser, published in 1915.Handsome Eugene Witla, son of a middleclass family in an Illinois town, cherishes his bent toward drawing and writing, and is looked upon as a dreamer. Then, ...
George Jean Nathan
(1882–1958),American essayist, drama critic, and polemicist, co‐founder in 1924 (with H. L. Mencken) and editor of the American Mercury. He published many collections of theatre criticism and essays, ...
Grant Richards
(1872–1948) British publisher.Richards wrote (1890–96) for W. T. Stead’s Review of Reviews before setting up his own firm. He published, in well-designed books, many important writers of the ...
H. L. Mencken
(1880–1956),American journalist and critic, who as literary editor from 1908, then as co‐editor, 1914–23 (with G. J. Nathan), of The Smart Set exercised a great influence on American taste, upholding ...
Hutchins Hapgood
(1869–1944),born in Chicago, graduated from Harvard (1892), and was a journalist in Chicago and New York. His realistic narratives include The Autobiography of a Thief (1903), The Spirit of ...
J. T. Farrell
(1904–79),American naturalist novelist, best known in Britain for his trilogy about Studs Lonigan, a young Chicago Catholic of Irish descent: Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan ...
Jennie Gerhardt
Novel by Dreiser, published in 1911.As a poor young girl in Columbus, Ohio, Jennie Gerhardt has an affair with Senator Brander, who dies before he can marry her. With their child Vesta she moves to ...
John Dos Passos
(1896–1970),American novelist. His first important novel, Three Soldiers (1921), which has war as its subject, was followed by many others including Manhattan Transfer (1925) and U.S.A. (1938), a ...
Look Homeward, Angel
A novel by Thomas Wolfe, published in 1929. Subtitled ‘A Story of the Buried Life’, it is the first of a series of novels about the Gant family. In this ...
