The author/subject indices to the annual American Literary Scholarship bibliographies (Duke University Press) offer excellent insights into which authors, genres, and trends are deemed the most important during particular years. The authors included and omitted, the amount of space devoted to each author, the organization of the volumes, the evaluations by the bibliographers explicitly or implicitly announce which texts are crucial for scholars, students, and librarians in their efforts to define what is American literature and by implication American literary and cultural values.

We supplement the ALS volumes with two influential bibliographies compiled, with assistance, by the most important early 20th-century American literature bibliographer, Lewis Leary. Unfortunately, these bibliographies do not have author/subject indices. Visitors to this cite will have to obtain electronic or hard copies of the volumes. But the tables of contents do reveal attitudes about how to define American literature and culture and also extend the critical information we offer back to the beginnings of the 20th century. Therefore, we begin this section with Leary’s two volumes:

Leary, Lewis, comp. Articles on American Literature, 1900-1950. Duke University Press, 1954.

Leary, Lewis, with Carolyn Bartholet and Catharine Roth, comp. Articles on American Literature, 1950-1967. Duke University Press, 1970.