World Literary Awards

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Library of America

ライブラリー・オブ・アメリカ

Raiburarii obu Amerika

Profile

Gender
Unknown
Born
1979-01-01 （New York City）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English

Career

Occupations
Publisher, Nonprofit organization
Active Years
1979-
Affiliations
Penguin Random House (Distribution)
Influenced By
Edmund Wilson, Jason Epstein, Daniel Aaron, Richard Poirier, G. Thomas Tanselle
Influenced
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Saul Bellow, Frederick Douglass, Ursula K. Le Guin

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Library of America Series

1982 Anthology / Classic American literature

A series aimed at keeping important American literature and historical writings in print permanently; volumes include scholarly notes and chronologies. Noted for black cloth covers with a red, white, and blue stripe.

Preservation of American literatureEditorial scholarshipHistorical documents and records

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Textual scholarship focused on authoritative editionsExtensive notes and chronologies as back matterMinimal editorial apparatus (often no introductory essays)
Recurring Motifs
Canon-building and reevaluationPreservation of period documentsVisual uniformity (book design)

Legacy

The Library of America has contributed to preserving America's literary and cultural heritage by issuing scholarly, authoritative editions of important works. It is highly valued by scholars and educators, though its selection criteria have sometimes been debated.

In Popular Culture

  • Subject of satire and parody (e.g., jokes that one must die to be included in the LOA)

Quotes

  • Its black dust jackets with an image of the author and a simple red, white, and blue stripe running below the author's name, rendered in a fountain-pen-like hand, help give the clothbound volumes a timeless feel.
    Source: David Skinner, Humanities (2015) (2015)
  • The Library of America is our quasi-official national canon.
    Source: William Deresiewicz, New York Times Book Review (2004) (2004)

Trivia

  • Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation.
  • The first volumes were published in 1982.
  • The black covers with a red, white, and blue stripe have become emblematic of the series.