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Early American Fiction


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Description: Early American Fiction includes first editions of American novels and short stories written before 1850 by authors of significance during their lifetimes. In total, 422 titles in 559 volumes by eighty-one authors make up the database. It includes well-known works by authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper and many works by lesser-known writers such as Catharine Maria Sedgwick, which have seldom been republished in modern editions. The time between the publication of the first American novel, William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy (1789) and the mid-point of the nineteenth century defined American literature and helped to forge a cultural identity for the nation. Users interested in topics such as the literary tastes of the times, how books were packaged, what women were reading, and how the literary canon is formed will benefit greatly from the digitization of these texts. Two standard bibliographies, Bibliography of American Literature (BAL) and Lyle H. Wright's American Fiction 1774-1850 have been used to define the project.

Full text: yes
Access:  UNC-CH campus. Students, faculty, and staff or AHEC users affiliated with UNC-CH with an AHEC Digital Library account may access from off-campus.  (instructions)
Medium:  web
Coverage:  1774-1850
Updated:  Completed set of works, no updates planned
Language:  English