The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States

by Eugene Ehrlich and Gorton Carruth

An array of facts about American writers - famous and otherwise - of every kind since Revolutionary times. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195031865
• ISBN13: 9780195031867
• Release Date: December 1982
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 4.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 9.6" x 11.6"

Customer Reviews

Not necessary but informative

If you are a literature teacher, a literary enthusiast, an aspiring writer, or a curious reader thirsty for tidbits and longer facts about writers and places associated with them, then "The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States" is a book to add to your shelf. When you read a work by an American writer, then take out this book to learn about places associated with that writer. This is the kind of book you can sit down with from time to time and flip through to read this and that. To give an idea of what Oxford chose to include--let's flip open--page 167. On the right hand column where tidbits are placed is this poem by Ogden Nash: Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker. The city associated with him is Rye on Long Island Sound. Another city on this page is Roxbury, home and burial place of the great naturalist writer, John Burroughs. The book is arranged geographically by regions, then by states, and alphabetically by cities. Editors include places where writers stayed when they actually wrote or published their works. Anything written elsewhere is not included for that state, but that influence will be recorded in another state. I chose my state of Louisiana as the one to demonstrate the kind of information in this book. The first city associated with a writer of note is Baton Rouge, home of the poet Robert Lowell and his wife Jean Stafford. Lowell taught at LSU and Stafford worked for Southern Review, the literary arm of LSU. Two editors at the time were Cleanth Brooks, a prominent literary critic, and Robert Penn Warren, who wrote All the King's Men, a Pulitzer Prize novel, loosely based on Louisiana's governor Huey P. Long, a prime consideration for president. Kate Chopin lived in Cloutierville, near Natchitoches, for two years before returning home to St. Louis after her husband died. She set her famous novel, The Awakening (Norton Critical Editions) on Grand Isle, formerly a resort island off the coast of Louisiana. Of course, New Orleans is a literary capital in its own right. Native-born writers include Truman Capote, Shirley Ann Grau, for her Pulitzer novel, The Keepers of the House. A playwright, Lillian Hellman set the controversial Toys in the Attic: A Drama in Three Acts in New Orleans. Of lesser fame outside Louisiana but quite famous inside is Robert Tallant, a folklorist best known for Voodoo in New Orleans (Pelican Pouch Series). William Faulkner sought advice from Sherwood Anderson in writing his first novel Soldiers' Pay, also published in the seminal work, Library of America. Mark Twain spent time on a riverboat to familiarize himself with New Orleans for his book, Life on the Mississippi (Signet Classics). Tennesse Williams made streetcars a tourist destination with his play, A Streetcar Named Desire. A last person of note for this review, but certainly not of Louisiana, is John Kennedy Toole, who wrote A Confederacy of Dunces, and was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer for this novel. Walker Percy helpe