The list in the preceding chapter of the key articles dealing with national literatures shows that the Britannica separately treats the literary products of some 30 countries. To outline 30 courses of reading, mentioning the 3,000 critical and biographical articles, would make this Guide unwieldy. On pp. 929–937 of Vol. 29 the reader will find classified lists of these articles, and only four groups are selected here for detailed treatment: those on American, English, German and Greek literature. The main article in the literature of each of the other countries indicates the characteristic forms, the typical works of the leading writers discussed in special articles, so that courses of reading as systematic as these four can easily be planned for other countries by the reader.
| Topic of Study | Article and Contributor |
|---|---|
| General Summary of the subject, with critical appreciation of main tendencies and great authors. | American Literature (Vol. 1, p. 831), by George E. Woodberry, formerly professor in Columbia University, biographer of Poe and Hawthorne, author of America in Literature, etc. |
| Colonial Period. | |
| English writers, especially historical. | John Smith (Vol. 25, p. 264), by Prof. Edward Arber, editor of English Garner, etc. |
| Colonial writers, especially of Puritan New England. | Massachusetts, History (Vol. 17, p. 858); Connecticut, History (Vol. 6, p. 954). |
| Massachusetts governors and historical writing. | William Bradford (Vol. 4, p. 370); John Winthrop (Vol. 28, p. 736). |
| The Clergy as writers of History, and of Theology of the Puritan School. | John Cotton (Vol. 7, p. 255), by Prof. Williston Walker, Yale, author of History of the Congregational Churches in the United States; Thomas Hooker (Vol. 13, p. 674). |
| The Mathers. | Cotton, Increase, and Richard Mather (Vol. 17, p. 883). |
| Apostle to the Indians. | John Eliot (Vol. 9, p. 278), by Prof. Walker. |
| Revolt against Puritanism. | |
| Ethical. | Thomas Morton (Vol. 18, p. 882). |
| Theological. | Roger Williams (Vol. 28, p. 682). |
| New England Verse. | Michael Wigglesworth (Vol. 28, p. 626). |
| The New England Diarist. | Samuel Sewall (Vol. 24, p. 733). |
| The great New England Philosopher and Theologian; the first American author with a lasting and European reputation. | Jonathan Edwards (Vol. 9, pp. 3–6), by Prof. Harry Norman Gardiner, editor of Jonathan Edwards—a Retrospect, and Riehard Webster. |
| Edwards’s contemporaries. | Charles Chauncy (Vol. 6, p. 18). |
| Jonathan Mayhew (Vol. 17, p. 935). | |
| Edwards’s followers,—the New England theology. | Joseph Bellamy (Vol. 3, p. 694). |
| Samuel Hopkins (Vol. 13, p. 685). | |
| The first newspaper in New York. | William Bradford (Vol. 4, p. 370). |
| A Virginia educator. | James Blair (Vol. 4, p. 34). |
| The American Quaker preacher. | John Woolman (Vol. 28, p. 817). |
| A royal governor and historian. | Thomas Hutchinson (Vol. 14, p. 13). |
| A New York statesman and philosopher. | Cadwallader Colden (Vol. 6, p. 663). |
| The first great American figure in secular literature,—essayist, pamphleteer, politician, autobiographer. | Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 11, p. 24), by Richard Webster, late fellow Princeton University, editorial staff, Encyclopaedia Britannica. |
| Revolutionary Period. | |
| The patriotic orators and Pamphleteers. | James Otis (Vol. 20, p. 366). |
| Patrick Henry (Vol. 13, p. 300). | |
| John Adams (Vol. 1, p. 176). | |
| Josiah Quincy (Vol. 22, p. 753). | |
| James Wilson (Vol. 28, p. 693). | |
| “Common Sense.” | Thomas Paine (Vol. 20, p. 456). |
| James Otis’s Sister. | Mercy Warren (Vol. 28, p. 330). |
| The Declaration of Independence and its author. | Independence, Declaration of (Vol. 14, p. 372), and Thomas Jefferson (Vol. 15, p. 301), both by Dr. F. S. Philbrick. |
| Prominent Patriots in New Jersey. | William Livingston (Vol. 16, p. 813). |
| John Witherspoon (Vol. 28, p. 759). | |
| A Connecticut Educator and Patriot. | Ezra Stiles (Vol. 25, p. 919). |
| Opponents of Independence. | Joseph Galloway (Vol. 11, p. 421). |
| “A Westchester Farmer.” | Samuel Seabury (Vol. 24, p. 531). |
| In Massachusetts. | Mather Byles (Vol. 4, p. 896). |
| In Maryland. | Jonathan Boucher (Vol. 4, p. 312). |
| Patriotic Poetry. | John Trumbull (Vol. 27, p. 324). |
| The “Hartford Wits.” | Timothy Dwight (Vol. 8, p. 741). |
| Satire and Epic. | Joel Barlow (Vol. 3, p. 406). |
| “Battle of the Kegs.” | Francis Hopkinson (Vol. 13, p. 685). |
| A Western Traveler. | Jonathan Carver (Vol. 5, p. 437). |
| The National Period. | |
| The Constitution and its Pamphleteers—“The Federalist,” the greatest application of elementary principles of government to practical administration. | James Madison (Vol. 17, p. 284). |
| Alexander Hamilton (Vol. 12, p. 880), by Dr. F. S. Philbrick and Hugh Chisholm. | |
| John Jay (Vol. 15, pp. 294–296). | |
| Importance of the early national period on the development of American literature. | United States, History, §106 (Vol. 27, p. 688), by the late Prof. Alexander Johnson, Princeton, and C. C. Whinery, assistant editor, Encyclopaedia Britannica. |
| The first professional “man of letters.” | Charles Brockden Brown (Vol. 4, p. 657). |
| First foreign vogue. | |
| Essay and History: “The American Goldsmith.” | Washington Irving (Vol. 14, p. 856), by Richard Garnett, late librarian British Museum. |
| Fiction: “The American Scott.” | James Fenimore Cooper (Vol. 7, p. 79), by W. E. Henley, poet, critic and essayist. |
| Poetry. | William Cullen Bryant (Vol. 4, p. 698), by G. W. Cable. |
| The Knickerbocker School. | New York City, Literature (Vol. 19, p. 615). |
| New York as a literary centre. | James Kirke Paulding (Vol. 20, p. 958). |
| Fitz-Greene Halleck (Vol. 12, p. 854). | |
| A Southern novelist and poet. | W. G. Simms (Vol. 25, p. 123). |
| Cooper’s successor as novelist of the sea. | Herman Melville (Vol. 18, p. 102). |
| Poetesses of the early 19th century. | Lydia Huntley Sigourney (Vol. 25, p. 82). |
| Alice and Phoebe Cary (Vol. 5, p. 438). | |
| The “Literati.” | N. P. Willis (Vol. 28, p. 686). |
| Rufus Wilmot Griswold (Vol. 12, p. 610). | |
| The short story. | Edgar Allan Poe (Vol. 21, p. 875), by David Hannay. |
| Traveler, Translator, Poet. | Bayard Taylor (Vol. 26, p. 467). |
| New England in the 19th century. | |
| Boston and Cambridge. | Boston (Vol. 4, p. 293). |
| Harvard University (Vol. 13, p. 38). | |
| George Ticknor (Vol. 26, p. 936). | |
| History and Scholarship as affected by European contacts. | George Bancroft (Vol. 3, p. 307), by Prof. W. M. Sloane, Columbia. |
| Edward Everett (Vol. 10, p. 8), by Edward Everett Hale. | |
| Jared Sparks (Vol. 25, p. 608), by Prof. W. L. Corbin, Wells College. | |
| J. G. Palfrey (Vol. 20, p. 629). | |
| W. H. Prescott (Vol. 22, p. 294). | |
| J. L. Motley (Vol. 18, p. 909). | |
| Unitarianism and its Literary Leaders, Influencing and Influenced by Transcendentalism. | Hosea Ballou (Vol. 3, p. 282). |
| William Ellery Channing (Vol. 5, p. 843), by Richard Webster. | |
| James Freeman Clarke (Vol. 6, p. 444), by E. E. Hale. | |
| Theodore Parker (Vol. 20, p. 829). | |
| Transcendentalism and the Concord School—central figures. | Amos Bronson Alcott (Vol. 1, p. 528), by Prof. C. F. Richardson, Dartmouth College. |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson (Vol. 9, p. 332), by Prof. Henry Van Dyke, Princeton. | |
| Henry David Thoreau (Vol. 26, p. 877), by William Sharp (“Fiona Macleod”). | |
| The Dial. | Margaret Fuller (Vol. 11, p. 295). |
| George Ripley (Vol. 23, p. 363), by Edward Livermore Burlingame, editor of Scribner’s. | |
| Brook Farm. | Brook Farm (Vol. 4, p. 645), by E. L. Burlingame. |
| The author of “Margaret.” | Sylvester Judd (Vol. 15, p. 536). |
| The great New England Novelist. | Nathaniel Hawthorne (Vol. 13, p. 102), by Richard Henry Stoddard, poet and essayist. |
| The great New England Poet. | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Vol. 16, p. 977), by Thomas Davidson, author of The Philosophical System of Rosmini. |
| Earlier Romanticism. | Washington Allston (Vol. 1, p. 709). |
| Richard Henry Dana (Vol. 7, p. 792). | |
| Oratory. | |
| In the North. | Daniel Webster (Vol. 28, p. 459), by Everett P. Wheeler, author of Daniel Webster, etc. |
| Rufus Choate (Vol. 6, p. 258). | |
| Wendell Phillips (Vol. 21, p. 407), by Col. T. W. Higginson. | |
| Charles Sumner (Vol. 26, p. 81). | |
| Robert Charles Winthrop (Vol. 28, p. 736). | |
| In the South. | Henry Clay (Vol. 6, p. 470), by Carl Schurz, biographer of Clay. |
| Other Southern Orators. | John C. Calhoun (Vol. 5, p. 1), by Judge H. A. M. Smith, South Carolina. |
| Robert Young Hayne (Vol. 13, p. 114). | |
| The Pulpit Orator of the North. | Henry Ward Beecher (Vol. 3, p. 639), by Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor The Outlook. |
| The Abolition Novelist, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. | Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (Vol. 25, p. 972), by Horace E. Scudder, late editor of the Atlantic Monthly. |
| Another anti-slavery authoress. | Lydia Maria Child (Vol. 6, p. 135). |
| The New England Poets prominent in the Anti-Slavery Movement. | John Greenleaf Whittier (Vol. 28, p. 613), by Edmund Clarence Stedman, poet and critic. |
| James Russell Lowell (Vol. 17, p. 74), by Horace E. Scudder, biographer of Lowell. | |
| Their Contemporary, the “Autocrat.” | Oliver Wendell Holmes (Vol. 13, p. 616), by J. T. Morse, biographer of Holmes. |
| The American Poet—by the criterion of foreign standards. | Walt Whitman (Vol. 28, p. 610), by John Burroughs, author of Whitman, A Study. |
| Scholarship and criticism in this Period and the Next: the particularly Important Work done by Americans in Grammar, Language, Text Criticism, etc. | Francis James Child (Vol. 6, p. 135). |
| Cornelius C. Felton (Vol. 10, p. 246). | |
| George Perkins Marsh (Vol. 17, p. 768). | |
| William Dwight Whitney (Vol. 28, p. 611), by Benjamin E. Smith, editor Century Dictionary. | |
| Richard Grant White (Vol. 28, p. 601). | |
| Horace Howard Furness (Vol. 11, p. 362). | |
| Francis Andrew March (Vol. 17, p. 688). | |
| Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve (Vol. 12, p. 12). | |
| Charles Eliot Norton (Vol. 19, p. 797). | |
| The later Poets. | |
| New England. | Thomas Bailey Aldrich (Vol. 1, p. 536). |
| Julia Ward Howe (Vol. 13, p. 836). | |
| William Wetmore Story (Vol. 25, p. 970). | |
| New York. | Edmund Clarence Stedman (Vol. 25, p. 861). |
| Richard Henry Stoddard (Vol. 25, p. 939). | |
| Richard Watson Gilder (Vol. 12, p. 12). | |
| Pennsylvania. | Charles Godfrey Leland (Vol. 16, p. 405). |
| Silas Weir Mitchell (Vol. 18, p. 618). | |
| The South. | Sidney Lanier (Vol. 16, p. 181), by Prof. W. P. Trent, Columbia. |
| The Middle West (especially humorous, light and character verse). | John Hay (Vol. 13, p. 105). |
| Eugene Field (Vol. 10, p. 321). | |
| James Whitcomb Riley (Vol. 23, p. 343). | |
| The Far West. | Francis Bret Harte (Vol. 13, p. 31). |
| Joaquin Miller (Vol. 18, p. 464). | |
| Edward Rowland Sill (Vol. 25, p. 107). | |
| Later Fiction. | |
| The American Realist. | W. D. Howells (Vol. 13, p. 839). |
| The American Cosmopolite. | Henry James (Vol. 15, p. 143). |
| Stories of Italy. | F. Marion Crawford (Vol. 7, p. 386). |
| Historical Romance. | Lewis Wallace (Vol. 28, p. 276). |
| Humorous Short Story. | Francis R. Stockton (Vol. 25, p. 938). |
| Pietistic Novel. | E. P. Roe (Vol. 23, p. 449). |
| J. G. Holland (Vol. 13, p. 587). | |
| The Provincial Types— | |
| Maine. | Sarah Orne Jewett (Vol. 15, p. 371). |
| New England. | Mary E. Wilkins (Vol. 28, p. 646). |
| West. | Edward Eggleston (Vol. 9, p. 17). |
| Mary Hallock Foote (Vol. 10, p. 625). | |
| Francis Bret Harte (Vol. 13, p. 31). | |
| South: Tennessee. | “Charles Egbert Craddock” (Vol. 7, p. 360). |
| Kentucky. | James Lane Allen (Vol. 1, p. 691). |
| Virginia. | Thomas Nelson Page (Vol. 20, p. 450). |
| New Orleans. | George W. Cable (Vol. 4, p. 920). |
| Essayists. | Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Vol. 13, p. 455). |
| Edward Everett Hale (Vol. 12, p. 832). | |
| Charles Dudley Warner (Vol. 28, p. 326). | |
| George William Curtis (Vol. 7, p. 652), by Charles Eliot Norton. | |
| Humor. | |
| Henry Wheeler Shaw, “Josh Billings” (Vol. 24, p. 813). | |
| The American “Hood.” | John Godfrey Saxe (Vol. 24, p. 258). |
| “Bill Nye.” | Edgar Wilson Nye (Vol. 19, p. 929). |
| America’s Great Humorist. | Mark Twain (Vol. 27, p. 490), by Prof. Brander Matthews, Columbia. |
| “Uncle Remus.” | Joel Chandler Harris (Vol. 13, p. 20). |
| Puck. | H. C. Bunner (Vol. 4, p. 799). |
| “Mr. Dooley.” | Finley Peter Dunne (Vol. 8, p. 682). |
| History. | Francis Parkman (Vol. 20, p. 832), by John Fiske. |
| Hermann Eduard Von Holst (Vol. 28, p. 210). | |
| Francis Lieber (Vol. 16, p. 590). | |
| C. E. A. Gayarré (Vol. 11, p. 542). | |
| Henry Charles Lea (Vol. 16, p. 314). | |
| Historians. | Henry Martyn Baird (Vol. 3, p. 224). |
| John Fiske (Vol. 10, p. 437), by Prof. C. F. Richardson, Dartmouth. | |
| James Ford Rhodes (Vol. 23, p. 257). | |
| Henry Cabot Lodge (Vol. 16, p. 860). | |
| James B. McMaster (Vol. 17, p. 264). | |
| James Schouler (Vol. 24, p. 377). | |
| Theodore A. Dodge (Vol. 8, p. 369). | |
| John Codman Ropes (Vol. 23, p. 718). | |
| Alfred T. Mahan (Vol. 17, p. 394). | |
| Albert Bushnell Hart (Vol. 13, p. 30). | |
| Hubert H. Bancroft (Vol. 3, p. 309). | |
| Theodore Roosevelt (Vol. 23, p. 711), by Lawrence F. Abbott, New York Outlook. | |
| Newspaper Men. | Newspapers, American (Vol. 19, pp. 566–572). |
| Periodicals, United States (Vol. 21, pp. 154–155). | |
| New York Tribune. | Horace Greeley (Vol. 12, p. 531), by Whitelaw Reid. |
| Whitelaw Reid (Vol. 23, p. 52). | |
| New York Herald. | James Gordon Bennett (Vol. 3, p. 740). |
| Springfield Republican. | Samuel Bowles (Vol. 4, p. 344). |
| New York Times. | H. J. Raymond (Vol. 22, p. 933). |
| New York Sun. | C. A. Dana (Vol. 7, p. 791). |
| New York Evening Post. | Edwin Lawrence Godkin (Vol. 12, p. 174). |
| Louisville Courier-Journal. | Henry Watterson (Vol. 28, p. 418). |