American Literature

Our Town (1938) is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder served in both World War I and World War II and wrote honestly about life in America. He wrote several plays but considered Our Town to be his best work. It was performed for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Our Town, and the play is widely considered to be... Read Our Town Summary

Outer Dark (1968) is Cormac McCarthy’s second novel. The setting resembles Appalachia circa 1900; however, in this fabulist story, the setting transcends one particular location. A postmodern take on Southern gothic, the novel centers on two siblings, Culla and Rinthy Holme, who have a child together. After the child is born, Culla flees and wanders the earth like Cain. He is shadowed by a murderous trio, who act as both his punishers and his guardians... Read Outer Dark Summary

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Out of Darkness is a young adult historical novel written by Ashley Hope Pérez and published in 2015 by Holiday House of New York. Pérez holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, where her research focused on Latin American literature. A professor of World Literatures at Ohio State University, she is also the author of What Can’t Wait (2011), The Knife and The Butterfly (2012), and Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions about... Read Out of Darkness Summary

“Ozymandias” is one of the most famous sonnets in European literature. Written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), it was first published in 1818 in the Examiner, a literary periodical that introduced the works of many Romantics, including Shelley and his contemporary, John Keats. Shelley later included the sonnet in his poem collection Rosalind and Helen, published in 1819.Now one of Shelley’s most recognizable and widely anthologized poems, “Ozymandias” was the result... Read Ozymandias Summary

Pale Fire is a 1962 experimental novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the author of seminal novels like Lolita and Pnin. The novel consists of a 999-line poem by a fictional poet and the accompanying notations by a fictional editor. Rather than analyze the poem, however, the notations create a new narrative. Pale Fire has been heralded as a landmark example of metafiction and one of the most important novels of the 20th century.This guide is written... Read Pale Fire Summary

Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a novella written by Katherine Anne Porter. It was published in 1939, along with two other short novellas, Old Mortality and Noon Wine, under the collective title Pale Horse, Pale Rider. The story portrays two young lovers who are tragically affected by the 1918 influenza epidemic, or Spanish Flu.Other works by this author include The Jilting of Granny Weatherall and Flowering Judas.This guide uses an eBook version of the 2008... Read Pale Horse, Pale Rider Summary

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Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case” was published in 1905 in McClure's Magazine. In its original iteration, the story was titled “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament,” but it was later shortened to the current title. The story became a popular one of Cather’s, in part because it was one of the only few that she allowed to be anthologized, but also for the debates over its interpretation. “Paul’s Case” was turned into a TV... Read Paul's Case Summary

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Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is a middle grade novel by Jonathan Auxier originally published in 2011. The novel encompasses a variety of genres: fantasy, the heroic quest, and even some Dickensian orphan flourishes, for good measure. It was a BookPage Magazine Best Book of the year, an ABA New Voices selection (2011), and a finalist for the Monica Hughes Award for science fiction and fantasy.This study guide references the edition published by Amulet... Read Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes Summary

Born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi, Eudora Welty was a fiction writer and photographer who predominantly wrote about the American South. After finishing college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Welty spent her entire adult life in Jackson, and her stories often reflect the intimacies of everyday Mississippi life. Published in 1939, “Petrified Man” is a Southern Gothic short story that offers a glimpse of an average morning for two women at a hair salon in... Read Petrified Man Summary

When William Inge’s play Picnic opened on Broadway in 1953, it received much popular and critical acclaim. In the post-World War II era, in the face of rising paranoia and fear of communism, the televisions that had become fixtures in American homes broadcast idealized portrayals of small-town family life with shows such as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), Make Room for Daddy (1953), Leave it to Beaver (1957), and The Donna Reed Show... Read Picnic Summary

Originally published in 1952, Player Piano is Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel. Set in a dystopian future where humanity has given control of almost all of its decisions and jobs to machines, Player Piano details the struggles and ironies of humanity’s attempt at a reclamation of human purposefulness.Doctor Paul Proteus serves as the head of the Ilium plant—one of many such plants across the United States that have popped up after the Third World War. Everything... Read Player Piano Summary

Play It as It Lays is a novel by Joan Didion published in 1970. It was named one of TIME’s 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923-2005, cementing its status as one of the greatest works of American literature. In 1972, the novel was adapted for film, and Didion and her husband co-wrote the screenplay.Joan Didion is known for her fiction and nonfiction as well as for screenplays and a memoir entitled The Year of Magical Thinking. She has received... Read Play It As It Lays Summary

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Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral recounts the story of a young Black woman in the 1920s who decides to pass as white. Ostensibly a coming-of-age story, the novel features a complex treatment of racial barriers and gender inequalities. While the trajectory of the novel is straightforward and relatively typical for the bildungsroman—young woman leaves home, discovers herself through a series of obstacles she must overcome, and finally learns how to... Read Plum Bun Summary

Portnoy’s Complaint is a 1969 novel by American author Philip Roth. The novel is presented as a continuous monologue in which the protagonist Alex Portnoy speaks to his therapist about his difficult relationship with his family, his country, and sex. The novel’s explicit and comedic depiction of sex caused controversy on release though Portnoy’s Complaint was later heralded as one of the greatest English language novels of the 20th century. The novel was adapted into... Read Portnoy's Complaint Summary

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