Excerpt from Initial Studies American Letters This volume, originally published in 1887 as An Out line Sketch of American Literature, and reissued under the present title in 1891, with an appendix consisting of selections from representative American writers, is in tended as a companion to the historical sketch of English literature, entitled From Chaucer to Tennyson, pub lished in 1886 (revised edition for the Chautauqua Circle. It has now (1895) been asecond time revised and supplied with marginal catch-words for convenient refer ence. I have also added a few paragraphs to the final chapter, to bring the subject up to date. In writing it I have followed the same plan, aiming to present the sub jcet' in a sort of continuous essay rather than in the form of a primer or elementary manual. I have not under taken to describe, or even to mention, every American author or book of importance, but only those which seemed to me of most significance. Nevertheless I believe that the sketch contains enough detail to make it of some use as a guide-book to our literature. Though meant to be mainly a history of American belles-lettres, it makes some mention of historical and political writings, but hardly any of philosophical, scientific, and technical works. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.