African American literature: Additional Information

Studies of major periods of African American literature are Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., Black American Writing from the Nadir: The Evolution of a Literary Tradition, 1877–1915 (1989), and The Origins of African American Literature, 1680–1865 (2001); Frances Smith Foster, Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746–1892 (1993); Blyden Jackson, A History of Afro-American Literature: The Long Beginning, 1746–1895 (1989– ); and David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (1981, reissued 1997).

Studies of major genres and literary traditions in African American literature include William L. Andrews, To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760–1865 (1986); Bernard W. Bell, The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition (1987); Barbara T. Christian, Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976 (1980); Robert B. Stepto, From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative, 2nd ed. (1991); and Jean Wagner, Black Poets of the United States: From Paul Laurence Dunbar to Langston Hughes (1973).

Among the major anthologies of African American literature are Henry Louis Gates, Jr., et al. (eds.), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2003); and Patricia Liggins Hill et al. (eds.), Call & Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (1998).