...David J. Nordloh © 2000 Duke University Press 2000 Foreword Introducing this series in its first volume, covering 1963, James Woodress identified the idea for American Literary Scholarship with being over- whelmed on his return from a year in Europe by the quantity of scholarship produced...

... Bibliography, which because of the sheer mass of material often needs several years to cover a specific publication year comprehensively. The citation system employed in AmLS is consistent with that of the MLA, but with some further compression: books frequently discussed are given short titles...

.... Despite the rumored ‘‘death of the novel’’ and the proclaimed ‘‘death of the author’’ and the long-prophesied decline of the English department, the 1999 MLA Bibliography lists some 7,750 entries devoted to American literature, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the past two years and an increase...

...Gary Scharnhorst Duke University Press 2003 Foreword I have been privileged to edit AmLS in alternating years for the past 10 years, and I marvel how the task has changed in such a brief time. With the advent of the Internet and on-line databases and particularly email, I may now...

..., and dissertations per year. By design and of necessity AmLS is a selective review of this scholarship. As I have often indicated in the past, moreover, the quality of this annual is always a measure of the caliber of its contributors. The authors new to AmLS 2003 are Carol Singley, Rutgers University, Camden...

... mark the 30th and 40th years in its history. This anniversary, important enough certainly for the number, represents a kind of balance point for my coeditor, Gary Scharnhorst, and me: between us we have edited 24 of those 50 volumes, the same number also edited between them by the late James...

... alternated years since then. Our joint decision to withdraw would not in itself have meant the end. But academic conditions have changed dramatically in recent years, as we have noted in recent forewords and as several contributors to this present volume comment in their essays: the transformation...

... on AmLS 2000. He had begun his association with this series, overseeing both copyediting and production, when he became managing editor at Duke University Press in 1983; and he continued to do the copyediting after leaving the press in 1990 to freelance. Bob and I never met. During the early years...

...James J. Martine Duke University Press 2002 19 Drama James J. Martine The first year of the millennium may prove to be a watershed in ways other than chronological. New York theater strains to bridge a chasm between two audiences, one mostly baby boomers and older who expect...

...Gary Scharnhorst © 2013 Duke University Press 2013 20  General Reference Works Gary Scharnhorst For several years now I’ve been predicting the demise of the reference book. I should have predicted instead the steady decline in overall sales of reference books...

... in the most recent MLA bibliography suggested ‘‘a real need for an annual review in which various scholars would survey the past year’s work in American literature within their particular areas of competence Much has changed in 40 years. The number of qualifying items is at least four times larger than...

...- hand from a Faulkner conference I did not attend, during which one of the participants opined, “Criticism believes before scholarship demon- strates.” The past year in Faulkner studies has produced a great deal of criticism. Even the welcome new developments—more attention paid to Faulkner’s...

...Gary Scharnhorst Duke University Press 2005 22 General Reference Works Gary Scharnhorst Though some reference books this year seem to dwell on very narrow or specialized subjects, at least these topics may be covered fully in a single volume. As in recent years, a number...

...Krista Quesenberry Copyright © 2021 Duke University Press 2021 Fitzgerald and Hemingway Krista Quesenberry During the past two years, scholarship on Ernest Hemingway has con- tinued to outweigh scholarship on F. Scott Fitzgerald by a ratio of almost two to one. However, Fitzgerald s numbers...

...Lee Bartlett Duke University Press 2002 18 Poetry: The 1940s to the Present Lee Bartlett i Poets’ Prose Two of the year’s more significant books are not critical per se, but posthumously published prose by two poets: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (Anchor...

...M. Jimmie Killingsworth Duke University Press 2005 4 Whitman and Dickinson M. Jimmie Killingsworth Relatively few new books appeared this year on the two leading poets of 19th-century America. Even so, significant contributions made their way into print, including the second...

...John Bird 5  Mark Twain John Bird The year’s biggest news is the completion of Autobiography of Mark Twain, its third volume giving us Twain’s full autobiography for the first time, a work that will confound many, especially general readers, but that provides a treasure trove...

...Gary Scharnhorst Duke University Press 2007 21  General Reference Works Gary Scharnhorst The best news to be reported in this chapter within the past couple of years is that Thomson Gale has finally discontinued theDLB Yearbook, a boondoggle as overpriced as Defense...

... Gem of the Ocean, the latest in his 10-play cycle about the African Amer- ican experience in the United States, has its world premiere in Chicago; and David Rabe’s adaptation of Chekhov’s story The Black Monk has its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theater. The year’s noticeable trend...

...M. Jimmie Killingsworth; Daneen Wardrop © 2001 Duke University Press 2001 4 Whitman and Dickinson M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Daneen Wardrop Biographical and contextual studies of Whitman flourished this year with a major new critical biography, the reissue of a now...