Comprising over 750 entries in a single alphabetical sequence, the Cambridge Handbook of American Literature offers a compact and accessible guide to the major landmarks of American literature from colonial times to the present day. Entries on 500 separate authors, from Henry Adams to Louis Zukofsky, from Cotton Mather to Norman Mailer, give a full account of the subject's literary career. Entries on individual works - on major novels, plays, and volumes of poetry, from Absalom, Absalom! to The Zoo Story, from Moby-Dick to Catch-22, provide publication details and convenient plot summaries. There are entries also on the principal literary magazines past and present, and on literary movements as diverse as Transcendentalism and the Beats. There are helpful guides to further reading and chronological tables of American history and literature. Containing a wealth of authoritative, clearly presented information on the whole range of the American literary heritage, this is an invaluable reference work for the student and general reader alike.