Books by Lawrence Buell

Broader in scope than any previous literary study of the transcendentalists, this rewarding book analyzes the theories and forms characteristic of a vital group of American writers, as well as the principles and vision underlying transcendentalism. All the movement's major literary figures and forms are considered in detail.

The first book in many years to take in the full sweep of national fiction, The Dream of the Great American Novel explains why this supposedly antiquated idea continues to thrive. It shows that four G.A.N. "e;scripts"e; are keys to the dynamics of American literature and identity--and to the myth of a nation perpetually under construction.

Examining the long shadow cast by Emerson, and his role and significance as a truly American institution, Buell conveys both the style and substance of Emerson's accomplishment-in his conception of America as the transplantation of Englishness into the new world, and in his prodigious work as writer, religious thinker, and philosopher.

This book is a study of the development of New England literature and literary institutions from the American Revolutionary era to the late nineteenth century. Professor Buell explores the foundations, growth and literary results of the professionalisation of the writing vocation.

Emphasizing the influence of the physical environment on individual and collective perception, this book provides the theoretical underpinnings for an ecocriticism now reaching full power, and does so in remarkably clear ways. Focusing on 19th- and 20th-century writers, it reimagines city and country as a single complex landscape.