The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon

“A deep consideration of significant American writers, from Emerson to Pynchon…An erudite tour of the American literary landscape from one of its most important observers.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Ambitious, authoritative, and certainly arguable, Bloom’s compendium is an achievement of immense use and interest to literature students and general readers alike.” —Publishers Weekly

“He stands for a rare intellectual purity, being not only a kind of shaggy saint in his devotion to literature but also … a gadfly, a doomsayer and a great teacher.”
—Michael Dirda, The Wall Street Journal


”…an impressive and important look at what he sees as the core of American literature.”
—PopMatters.com

Harold Bloom (1930-2019) was Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University andAmerica’s foremost literary critic. Hewas the author of more than thirty books, including the New York Times best sellers The Western Canon, Shakespeare- The Invention of the Human and The Book of J as well as A Visionary Company, The Anxiety of Influence, and Possessed by Memory- The Inward Light of Criticism. He was a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees.David Mikics is the Moores Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Houston. He is the editor of The Annotated Emerson and the author, most recently, of Bellow’s People and Slow Reading in a Hurried Age. His reviews and articles have appeared in Tablet, the New Republic, and the New York Times.

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