A Companion to American Thought . Offers brief scholarly essays on key thinkers and ideas in American culture, past and present, with useful bibliographies for further research. Columbia Literary History of the United States . Columbia University, 1988. The most recent in a series of standard literary histories, this work emphasizes contemporary approaches to literature and the rediscovery of literatures previously marginalized.
Arrangement is thematic and chronological.
Ref PS 221 .A5 Dictionary of Literary Biography . This set provides lengthy articles of biographical information and some critical appraisal of literary works. The volumes are arranged thematically, with a cumulative index in the last volume. Though emphasis is on American and British literary authors, there is some coverage of journalists, historians, and critics, as well as writers from other countries. Offers short essays on the major philosophical concepts, antecedents, genres, institutions, movements, periodicals, events, and places associated with Transcendentalism.