The American: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

The American: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

• The American
• Norton Critical Edition
• English
• First Edition
• Paperback

<p><strong>The text reprinted in this volume is based on an examination of the five printed versions of <em>The American</em> (first published in 1877) which appeared in James's lifetime, and it is preceded by his "Preface to the New York Edition" (1907).</strong></p> The textual history of the novel is traced in A Note on the Text; a list of substantive variants and emendations; a facsimile manuscript page showing James's method of revision; and a list of the installments of the novel as they appeared in <em>The Atlantic</em>.<br /><br /> "Backgrounds and Sources" includes relevant extracts from correspondence, reviews, and articles by James and others, and from his Notebooks and Hawthorne.<br /><br /> "Contemporary Reception" of the novel is illustrated by twenty-one American and English reviews.<br /><br /> "Twentieth-Century Criticism" is represented in essays by Leon Edel, Oscar Cargill, Irving Howe, Richard Poirier, Royal A. Gettmann, and James W. Tuttleton.<br /><br /> A Selected Bibliography is included for further study.