"This is a history of American writing as it developed over the span of years from the settlement of the continent to the attainment, in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, of a cohesive and self-confident sense of cultural nationality. It encompasses not only belletristic writing, but construes 'literature' broadly to include such vehicles of thought and opinion as journals, travel accounts, political debate, and historical writing, as well as drama, poetry, and fiction. Built about the theme of an evolving American literary consciousness, and of an increasing awareness of Americans to the potentials of their land, the variety of their New World experience, and the challenge and richness of their developing society, the book traces the emergence of a body of native literary material and the gradual growth of a viable, distinctive American 'style' in literature. Professor Nye believes that out of these beginnings come the patterns and motivations which form the basis for American literature's coming-of-age; the writers of the colonial and republican American are the promise, of which Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whiteman are the fulfillment."- Publisher