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American Literature Before 1860

Open Education Resource Textbook for Kitchens' American Literature I, Chilton Campus, Fall 2019

Your Textbook

Your open textbook was created using a collection of works found within the public domain assembled for students of early American literature.  The content was remixed from a version used by Rio Salado Community College under the Creative Commons License below:

CCBYNCSA License Logo Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

Early Exporers and Settlers

Access the PDF below for the following readings from William Bradford:

  • Of Their Voyage, and How They Passed the Sea; and of Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod
  • Anno Domini 1620: The Mayflower Compact
  • Anno Domini 1620: The Starving Time
  • Anno Domini 1620: Indian Relations

The Puritans

Access the PDF below for the following readings by Anne Bradstreet:

  • Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666
  • To My Dear and Loving Husband
  • A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment

Access the PDF below for the reading by Edward Taylor:

  • Huswifery

The Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century

Access the PDF below for the following reading by Jonathan Edwards:

  • Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God

American Society in the 1800s

Access the PDF below for the following readings by Phillis Wheatley:

  • On Being Brought From Africa to America
  • A Charge, Delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, at Menotomy

Transcendentalism

Access the PDF below for the following readings by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

  • Self-Reliance
  • Nature

Access the PDF below for the following readings by Henry David Thoreau:

  • Resistance to Civil Government

Narrative Development

Access the PDF below for the following readings by Edgar Allan Poe:

  • The Fall of the House of Usher