American Literature

Editors in Chief

Jackson R. Bryer is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maryland, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses, principally in twentieth-century American fiction and American dramatic literature, for more than four decades. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than 50 books. Among them are Black American Writers: Bibliographical Essays (1978); American Women Writers: Bibliographical Essays (1983); Conversations with Lillian Hellman (1987); Selected Letters of Eugene O’Neill (1988); Sixteen Modern American Authors––Volume 2: A Survey of Research and Criticism Since 1972 (1990); The Heath Anthology of American Literature (1990; 1994; 1998; 2001; 2005; 2009); Lanford Wilson: A Casebook (1994); French Connections: Hemingway and Fitzgerald Abroad (1998); The Actor’s Art: Conversations with Contemporary American Stage Performers (2001); Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (2002); The Facts on File Companion to American Drama (2004; 2009); The Art of the American Musical: Conversations with the Creators (2005); Conversations with August Wilson (2006); The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder (2008); and Approaches to Teaching Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (2009). He is the co-editor and co-founder of Resources for American Literary Study and co-editor of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. He is co-founder and President of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, President of the Thornton Wilder Society, former President and current member of the Board of Directors of the Eugene O’Neill Society, and former member of the Board of Directors of the Ernest Hemingway Society and Foundation. He has served on the editorial boards of the South Atlantic Quarterly, the Eugene O’Neill Review, and American Drama.

Paul Lauter is Allan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature at Trinity College. He teaches American literature, specializing in the early 19th century and in contemporary multicultural writing. He is the author of several books including Canons and Contexts (Oxford, 1991) and From Walden Pond to Jurassic Park–The Cultural Work of American Studies (Duke, 2001) , now in its 6th edition and for which Lauter is general editor, represents a successful effort to put canon change into practice. Other recent projects include a co-edited collection called Literature, Class, and Culture (Longman’s, 2001), a volume of Thoreau’s writings for the New Riverside Series (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), and a Blackwell Companion to American Literature and Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Lauter served as president of the American Studies Association (USA) and was the 2001 recipient of the annual Jay Hubbell medal for lifetime achievement in American Literary Study awarded by the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association; and in 2006 of the Bode-Pearson Prize of the American Studies Association for lifetime achievement in American Studies.