The classic survey of American literature from its sixteenth-century origins to its flourishing present. This anthology offers the work of over 260 writers--34 newly included--representing the extraordinary wealth and diversity of American literature. Among the 36 major works included in their entirety are Franklin's "Autobiography"; Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"; Thoreau's "Walden"; Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave"; Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; Chopin's "The Awakening"; Cather's "My Antonia"; Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying"; Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire"; Larsen's "Quicksand"; Ginsberg's "Howl"; and Mamet's "Glengarry, Glen Ross." The Seventh Edition pays increased attention to cultural contexts through the inclusion of 45 color plates, 12 contextual clusters, updated maps and timelines, and through extensively revised section introductions, headnotes, footnotes, and bibliographies.