This new edition updates the study of American literature with the inclusion of poets from Hart Crane and E.E.Cummings to John Ashbery and A.R. Ammons and novelists from William Burroughs to John Irving. More space is given to drama and Black, Jewish and women writers to demonstrate that American literary history can no longer be considered largely in terms of regional dominances. Marshall Walker is author of "Robert Penn Warren: A Vision Earned"(1979).