Winter on the Nile; Walt Whitman Two Rivulets; and John Greenleaf Whittier
Mabel Martin. Sherwood Anderson and Jack London came into
the world in 1876, while the likes of Orestes August Brownson, Horace
Bushnell, Samuel Benjamin Helbert Judah, and John Neal all departed life and
letters. Thus, from little more than a list of authors, titles, and events, we may
perceive a clear example of a year alive with literary energy--a moment, as it
were, in the history of the nation, in which political, scientific, and social
advancements fired the imaginations of America's writers and fed the
appetites of a newly formed but nonetheless growing reading public.

However, still other reasons arise for observing literary productivity from a
chronological perspective, particularly when a specific moment in history
produces unexpected variety and identifies the complex alliance necessarily
formed by transition and new developments. What are we to conclude, for
instance, from an examination of the nation's bicentennial, 1976, and a focus
upon the literary events of that year? Wherein lie the common bonds of
chronology and theme, of purpose and audience, of form and structure
between Isaac Asimov and James Baldwin? Donald Barthelme and Ann
Beattie? Saul Bellow and Peter Benchley? Edward Berrigan and John
Berryman? Elizabeth Bishop and Philip Booth? How are we, as students and
readers, to judge the impact upon a readership that, within a single year, was
asked to partake of such a varied menu as Vance Bourjaily Now Playing at
Canterbury, Gerald Brace Days That Were, Richard Brautigan Loading
Mercury with a Pitchfork, James Cain The Institute, or Erskine Caldwell
Afternoons in Mid-America? How may we focus clearly upon a year that
produced a narrative by Truman Capote, a novel by R. V. Cassill, an
autobiography by Elizabeth Coatsworth, and a play by Donald Coburn?
Surely, such questions, and the almost endless avenues upon which one may
discover some answers, constitute the real purpose for examining literary
details and events related to literature within the United States from a year-by-
year viewpoint and structure.

Nevertheless, the Chronological Outline of American Literature is in no way
intended to serve as a substitute for such multi-dimensional reference works at
Lyle Wright three-volume American Fiction; W. J. Burke and W. D. Howe
American Authors and Books; H. H. Clark American Literature: Poe through
Garland and R. B. Davis' American Literature through Bryant; Jacob Blanck
Bibliography of American Literature; the Cambridge History of American
Literature; Robert E. Spiller A Literary History of the United States; or the
Oxford Companion to American Literature. Particularly, the author wants to
acknowledge the importance of Professor James D. Hart classic Oxford Com-
panion to American Literature ( Oxford University Press, 5th ed., 1983) in the
preparation of this Chronology. Professor Hart helped to establish the very
contours and vocabulary of American literary history and, in part, his Com-panion

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