Part One The Colonial Period
1. Benjamin Franklin ……………………………………………………………1
Autobiography ……………………………………………………………………2
2. Anne Bradstreet ………………………………………………………………6
To My Dear and Loving Husband …………………………………………………7
3. Philip Freneau …………………………………………………………………9
The Wild Honey Suckle ……………………………………………………… 10
4. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur ………………………………………… 13
Letters from an American Farmer ……………………………………………… 14
5. Thomas Jefferson …………………………………………………………… 19
Declaration of Independence …………………………………………………… 20
Part Two The Romantic Period
6. Washington Irving ………………………………………………………… 23
Rip Van Winkle ………………………………………………………………… 24
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne ……………………………………………………… 37
Young Goodman Brown ……………………………………………………… 38
8. Walt Whitman ……………………………………………………………… 55
Song of Myself ………………………………………………………………… 56
O Captain! My Captain! ……………………………………………………… 58
9. Emily Dickinson …………………………………………………………… 61
I Heard a Fly Buzz — When I Died — ………………………………………… 62
Because I Could Not Stop for Death — ………………………………………… 62
Wild Nights — Wild Nights! …………………………………………………… 63
A Bird, Came down the Walk — ……………………………………………… 64
This Is My Letter to the World ………………………………………………… 65
I Know That He Exists. ………………………………………………………… 65
10. Edgar Allan Poe …………………………………………………………… 67
Annabel Lee …………………………………………………………………… 68
11. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ………………………………………… 71
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls ………………………………………………… 72
The Arrow and the Song ……………………………………………………… 74
Part Three American Realism
12. Mark Twain ………………………………………………………………… 76
Running for Governor ………………………………………………………… 77
13. Bret Harte …………………………………………………………………… 84
The Luck of Roaring Camp ………………………………………………… 85
14. Kate Chopin ………………………………………………………………… 97
The Story of an Hour ………………………………………………………… 98
15. Theodore Dreiser …………………………………………………………102
Sister Carrie ……………………………………………………………………104
16. Jack London ………………………………………………………………114
Love of Life ……………………………………………………………………116
17. Edwin Arlington Robinson ………………………………………………138
Richard Cory …………………………………………………………………139
Miniver Cheevy ………………………………………………………………141
Part Four Modern American Literature
18. Ezra Pound …………………………………………………………………145
In a Station of the Metro ………………………………………………………146
19. Robert Frost…………………………………………………………………148
The Road Not Taken …………………………………………………………149
20. William Carlos Williams …………………………………………………152
The Red Wheelbarrow …………………………………………………………153
This Is Just to Say ………………………………………………………………154
21. Carl Sandburg ……………………………………………………………156
Fog ……………………………………………………………………………157
22. Wallace Stevens ……………………………………………………………159
Anecdote of the Jar ……………………………………………………………160
23. Edward Estlin Cummings ………………………………………………162
(Me up at does) …………………………………………………………………164
24. Francis Scott Fitzgerald …………………………………………………165
The Great Gatsby ………………………………………………………………166
25. Ernest Hemingway ………………………………………………………173
Cat in the Rain …………………………………………………………………175
26. William Faulkner …………………………………………………………179
A Rose for Emily ………………………………………………………………181
27. Langston Hughes …………………………………………………………192
The Negro Speaks of Rivers ……………………………………………………194
As I Grew Older ………………………………………………………………195
I, Too, Sing America ……………………………………………………………197
Ballad of the Landlord …………………………………………………………197
28. Sherwood Anderson ………………………………………………………200
The Egg ………………………………………………………………………202