The Norton Book of American Autobiography (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393046779)

From Mary Rowlandson's story of her capture by Indians in the mid-seventeenth century to Mary Paik Lee's story of being a pioneer Korean woman in America at the beginning of the twentieth century, the autobiographical form has provided our most vivid, intimate glimpses of daily American life and self-understanding.

In this groundbreaking anthology, respected writer and critic Jay Parini brings together an abundant selection from over three centuries of "the democratic voice . . . discovering itself." Here are the voices of the Founding Fathers and African American slaves; of transcendentalists and suffragists; of ancestors such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, Henry James, Helen Keller, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and many others; and of a wide range of contemporaries, including Maxine Hong Kingston, Gore Vidal, Julia Alvarez, and Mark Doty.

The rich, continuous influence of autobiographical writing in our culture is clear, and as memoirs continue to fascinate readers, this invaluable anthology provides an essential guide to our foremost American literary tradition.

Author: Jay Parini
ISBN-10: 039304677X
ISBN-13: 9780393046779
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 03/17/1999
Pages: 720
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.03lbs
Size: 9.29h x 5.86w x 1.46d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 03/01/1999 pg. 1149
Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/15/1998 pg. 56
Library Journal 04/01/1999 pg. 108