American
Lives
An
Anthology of Autobiographical Writing
Edited by Robert F. Sayre
Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
William L. Andrews, Series
Editor
"Schools, academic, and public
libraries will cheer this admirable work of research; highly
recommended."—Library Journal, 1994
American Lives is a groundbreaking
book, the first historically organized anthology of American
autobiographical writing, bringing us fifty-five voices from
throughout the nation's history, from Abigail Adams, Abraham
Lincoln, Jonathan Edwards, and Richard Wright to Quaker preacher
Elizabeth Ashbridge, con man Stephen Burroughs, and circus impresario
P.T. Barnum. Representing canonical and non-canonical writers,
slaves and slave-owners, generals and conscientious objectors,
scientists, immigrants, and Native Americans, the pieces in this
collection make up a rich gathering of American "songs of
ourselves."
Robert F. Sayre frames the selections with an overview of theory
and criticism of autobiography and with commentary on the relation
between history and many kinds of autobiographical texts—travel
narratives, stories of captivity, diaries of sexual liberation,
religious conversions, accounts of political disillusionment,
and discoveries of ethnic identity. With each selection Sayre
also includes an extensive headnote providing valuable critical
and biographical information.
A scholarly and popular landmark, American Lives is a
book for general readers and for teachers, students, and every
American scholar.
"This is the first historically organized
anthology of American autobiographical writing, offering fifty-five
voices from throughout the nation's history."—The
Year's Work 96, 1999
Robert F. Sayre, a leading authority on American autobiographical
writing, is professor of English at the University of Iowa. He
is the author of The Examined Self: Benjamin Franklin, Henry
Adams, Henry James and Thoreau and the American Indians.
He is the editor of New Essays on Walden and Take This
Exit: Rediscovering the Iowa Landscape.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) |
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November 1994
LC: 94-011251 CT
752 pp. 6 x 9
The cloth edition, ISBN 978-0-299-14240-7, is out of print.
"No short review can suggest the salience
of Sayre's samplings or the acumen of his own observations on
the meaning of autobiography... It gives us America itself."
—Randall M. Miller, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography, 1996. |
