Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States of North America

The very kind of laughter, already described in the foregoing chapter, induced many tourists to laugh at every little imperfection they meet in foreign countries. The laughter o...

My readers, I hope, will pardon a new word I introduce in this chapter. It is Unitedstatians. When this Union will spread herself, until the continent of this new world will be...

Six or seven years ago, I opened a book which I found on the central table of the house’s parlor in which I lodged. It was the fifth, or seventh edition of Notes, or Letters by...

Learned americans, and the british writers applied in vain to congress for a lawful protection of their honest labor. A subject of such an importance as the International Copy-r...

Ten years ago the theatres in America were thought immoral places: and if Niblo’s theatre was frequented by the best class, it was for no other reason, but because it did pass u...

Were politics, and laws looked as they ought to be, nothing would be more honorable than a statesman, or a lawyer: and these two noble sciences, though distinctly separated, wou...

I say it again; were the people encouraged to look back to standards of classical literature, so rich in all the languages of the old continent, this glorious, ambitious country...

Many americans, and a few foreigners, think that America is yet too young a country for possessing a National Literature. If they intend to say, that the number of classical wri...

Next to men, unworthy of the church, injuring American Literature, come editors of certain stamp, the shame of those countries, where it is permitted a free circulation. He who...

The love of ourselves is so firmly implanted in our heart, for which every honest being turns its eyes from death with disgust: and were it not mitigated with the idea of immort...