本教材的创新之处是所选的美国经典作家、作品均配有一到两篇相应的名家评论。评论的方法、角度各不相同，目的是为学生提供一种解读方法，也为使学生了解评论写作的方法，了解文学理论的具体运用提供具体实例，更为学生研究性学习指明一条探索的方向。需要强调的是读者对原著的理解不必受制于评论家的理解，我们可以把评论文和原著看成是评论家和作者之间跨越时空的精神对话，同样我们作为读者也可以和作者进行跨越时空的对话。

本书是上海市高等学校教育高地建设项目，是为普通高校英语专业本科生编写的美国文学教材。本书根据美国文学史各阶段的划分一殖民地时期与早期美国文学、浪漫主义、现实主义、现代主义和后现代主义，分为五章，精选了34位名家及其代表作品或作品节选，每篇选文均配有1～2篇名家评论，为学生鉴赏解读提供借鉴与指导。作品选文后还为学生进一步思考研读设计了思考题，并提供了相关参考书目。

Chapter Ⅰ  American Colonial and Early National Literature (1620-1820)

 1. Native American Voices

Literary Review

Selected Readings

How the World Began

 2. Anne Bradstreet

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Verses upon the Burning of Our House

To My Dear and Loving Husband

 3. Edward Taylor

Literary Review

Selected Readings

God' s Determinations

 4. Benjamin Franklin

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

 5. Thomas Jefferson

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Declaration of Independence

Chapter Ⅱ Romanticism (1820-1865)

 6. Washington Irving

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Rip Van Winkle

 7. James Fenimore Cooper

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Last of the Mohicans

 8. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The American Scholar

 9. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Minister's Black Veil

 10. Edgar Allan Poe

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Tell-Tale Heart

 11. Walt Whitman

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Song of Myself (1881)

I Hear America Singing

 12. Herman Melville

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Moby Dick

 13. Emily Dickinson

Literary Review

Selected Readings

"67 Success is counted sweetest

249 Wild Nights-Wild Nights!

288 I'm Nobody! Who are you?

1'129 Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

Chapter Ⅲ Realism (1865-1914)

 14. Mark Twain

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

 15. Henry James

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Daisy Miller. A Study

 16. Stephen Crane

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

 17. Theodore Dreiser

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Sister Carrie

Chapter Ⅳ Modernism (1914-1945)

 18. Robert Frost

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Mending Wall

The Road Not Taken

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 19. Sherwood Anderson

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Egg

 20. William Carlos Williams

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Red Wheelbarrow

This Is Just to Say

 21. Ezra Pound

Literary Review

Selected Readings

In a Station of the Metro

A Pact

 22. Eugene O'Neill

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Hairy Ape

 23. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Diamond as Big as the 'Ritz

 24. William Faulkner

Literary Review

Selected Readings

A Rose for Emily

 25. Ernest Hemingway

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Cat in the Rain

 26. Langston Hughes

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Theme for English B

 27. John Steinbeck

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Breakfast

Chapter Ⅴ Postmodernism (1945-)

 28. Arthur Miller

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Crucible

 29. Robert Lowell

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Mr. Edwards and the Spider

Skunk Hour

 30. Joseph Heller

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Catch-22

 31. James Baldwin

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Sonny' s Blues

 32. Flalmery O'Connor

Literary Review

Selected Readings

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

 33. Allen Ginsberg

Literary Review

Selected Readings

Howl

 34. Toni Morrison

Literary Review

Selected Readings

The Beloved

Bibliography