The Norton Book of American Autobiography

by Jay Parini

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"In this diverse and abundant selection, Parini brings together the classics in the tradition of American memoir with an astonishing variety of modern and contemporary writings. Here are the voices of the Founding Fathers and of African American slaves; of transcendentalists and suffragists; of ancestors such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, Henry James, Helen Keller, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, and many others; and of contemporaries including Maxine show more Hong Kingston, James Alan McPherson, Annie Dillard, Richard Rodriguez, and Kathleen Norris. From Mary Rowlandson's story of her capture by Indians in the mid-seventeenth century to Sherman Alexie's unvarnished portrait of Native American experience in the mid-twentieth century, the autobiographical form has provided our literature's most vivid, intimate glimpses of daily American life and self-understanding." "This is a necessary book for writers and would-be writers in all genres considering their own autobiographies, and for readers of all kinds interested in how Americans have recorded their inner and outer landscapes."--BOOK JACKET. show less

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74+ Works 3,152 Members
Jay Parini was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania in 1948. In 1970 he graduated from Lafayette College and he received a doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in 1975. Before becoming a professor of Engliah and Creative Writing at Vermont's Middlebury College in 1982, Parini taught at Dartmouth College. Parini writes poetry, novels, show more biographies, and criticism, and he has published numerous reviews and essays in major journals and newspapers. He co-founded the New England Review in 1976. In 1995, he was appointed literary executor for author Gore Vidal. A film version of The Last Station, his 1990 novel, was released in 2009. Parini's novel, One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Common Knowledge

Original title
The Norton Book of American Autobiography
Original publication date
1999
Original language
English

Classifications

Genres
Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History
DDC/MDS
920.073History & geographyBiographies, Genealogy, HealdryBiographiesGeneral and collective by localitiesOf North AmericaFamous Americans
LCC
CT211 .N67Auxiliary Sciences of HistoryBiographyBiographyNational biography
BISAC

Statistics

Members
53
Popularity
575,413
Rating
(2.00)
Languages
English
Media
Paper
ISBNs
1