Early American Literature to 1830 Ph.D. Exam
Primary Works (arranged roughly in chronological order)
In those cases where selections or excerpts rather than entire volumes are required (poetry of
Anne Bradstreet, prose of John Smith, etc.), students are instructed to consult the two major
anthologies of the period, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume
A, and The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition, Volume A. For authors whose
selected works date from the beginning of the nineteenth century (Sigourney, Bryant, Child),
Volume B of both anthologies should be consulted.
Selected Native American oral tales
Christopher Columbus, letters to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage and to Ferdinand
and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Account
Bartolome de Las Casas, The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies, excerpts
Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, excerpts
Gaspar Perez de Villagra, The History of New Mexico, excerpts
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, selected works
Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
John Smith, selections from The General History of Virginia and A Description of New England
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”
Roger Williams, selections from A Key into the Language of America
The Whole Book of Psalms (Bay Psalm Book), selected psalms
Anne Bradstreet, selected poems
Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom (available in Harrison Meserole, American Poetry of
the Seventeenth Century)
Edward Taylor, selected poems
Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (A Narrative of the Captivity and
Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson)
Samuel Sewall, selections from The Diary
Cotton Mather, selections from The Wonders of the Invisible World and Magnalia Christi
Americana
Sarah Kemble Knight, The Journal
William Byrd, selections from A History of the Dividing Line, The Secret History of the Dividing
Line, and The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover
Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, A Divine and Supernatural Light, and
Personal Narrative
Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography; The Way to Wealth; Remarks Concerning the Savages of
North America; Speech of Miss Polly Baker
Ebeneezer Cook, The Sot-Weed Factor
John Woolman, The Journal
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, The Declaration of Independence, the Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, selections from The Age of Reason
The Federalist Papers, numbers 1, 6, 10
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Judith Sargent Murray, On the Equality of the Sexes
Philip Freneau, selected poems
Joel Barlow, The Hasty Pudding
Phillis Wheatley, selected poems
Samson Occom, A Short Narrative of My Life
Royal Tyler, The Contrast
Sarah Wentworth Morton, selected poems
William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy
Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth
Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland or Edgar Huntly
Rebecca Rush, Kelroy
Washington Irving, The Sketch Book
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans or The Pioneers
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie and Cacoethes Scribendi
William Cullen Bryant, selected poems
William Apess, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man and Son of the Forest
Lydia Maria Child, selected works
Lydia Sigourney, selected poems
Literary Histories (in chronological order)
Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature, 1607-1765. 1895. 810.9 t97h
W.P. Trent, ed. Cambridge History of American Literature. 1922. 810.9 c14
Robert Spiller, ed. Literary History of the United States. 1948. 810.9 Sp4l 1974.
Emory Elliot, ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. 1988. 810.9 c72
Sacvan Bercovitch, ed. Cambridge History of American Literature, Volume I: 1590-1820. 1994.
810.9 C14b
Dictionary of Literary Bibliography
Vol 24, American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734
Vol 31, American Colonial Writers, 1735-1781
Vol 37, American Writers of the Early Republic
Vol 200, American Women Prose Writers to 1820
Websites and Databases
American Antiquarian Society (www.aas.org)
Evans Digital Edition of Early American Imprints, Series I (Walker Library website)
McNeil Center for Early American Studies (www.mceas.org)
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (www.wm.edu/oieahc/)
Society of Early Americanists (www.hnet.uci.edu/mclark/seapage.htm)
Journals
American Literary History
American Literature
Early American Literature
Early American Studies
Journal of the Early Republic
New England Quarterly
Studies in Puritan-American Spirituality
William and Mary Quarterly
Selected Secondary Works
Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967.
Baym, Nina. Woman’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women, 1820-1870. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1978.
Brown, Richard D. Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 17001865. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Cheyfitz, Eric. The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to
Tarzan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Davidson, Cathy. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. Expanded edition.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Davis, Richard Beale. Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585-1763. Knoxville: University
of Tennessee Press, 1978.
Delbanco, Andrew. The Puritan Ordeal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle. The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1500-1900. New York:
Twayne, 1993.
Eccles, W.J. France in America. 1972. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1990.
Foster, Stephen. The Long Argument: English Puritanism and the Shaping of New England
Culture, 1570-1700. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Franklin, Wayne. Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers: The Diligent Writers of Early America.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Greene, Jack P. The Intellectual Construction of America. Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1993
Hubbell, Jay B. The South in American Literature, 1607-1900. Durham: Duke University Press,
1954.
Kerber, Linda. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Kolodny, Annete. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life
and Letters. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
Miller, Perry. Errand Into the Wilderness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.
---The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1953.
--The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1939.
Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia.
New York: Norton, 1975.
Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: The Colonial Mind. New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1954.
Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Continuity of American Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1961.
Rubin, Louis D., Jr., ed. The History of Southern Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1985.
Ruland, Richard and Malcolm Bradbury, From Puritanism to Postmodernism, chs. 1-3.New
York: Viking, 1991.
Shields, David S. Oracles of Empire: Poetry, Politics and Commerce in British America, 16901750. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier,
1600-1860. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
Spengemann, William C. A New World of Words: Redefining Early American Literature. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1999.
Warner, Michael. The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in EighteenthCentury America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1992.
Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1969.
Ziff, Larzer. Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World. New York: Viking, 1973.