Download or read book The Cambridge History of American Literature: Volume 1, 1590-1820 written by Sacvan Bercovitch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-28 with total page 846 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume I of The Cambridge History of American Literature was originally published in 1997, and covers the colonial and early national periods and discusses the work of a diverse assemblage of authors, from Renaissance explorers and Puritan theocrats to Revolutionary pamphleteers and poets and novelists of the new republic. Addressing those characteristics that render the texts distinctively American while placing the literature in an international perspective, the contributors offer a compelling new evaluation of both the literary importance of early American history and the historical value of early American literature.