In this celebrated analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Michael J. Colacurcio presents a view of the author as America's first significant intellectual historian. Colacurcio shows that Hawthorne's fiction responds to a wide range of sermons, pamphlets, and religious tracts and debates--a variety of moral discourses at large in the world of provincial New England. Informed by comprehensive historical research, the author shows that Hawthorne was steeped in New England historiography, particularly the sermon literature of the seventeenth century. But, as Colacurcio shows, Hawthorne did not merely borrow from the historical texts he deliberately studied; rather, he is best understood as having written history. In The Province of Piety, originally published in 1984 (Harvard University Press), Hawthorne is seen as a moral historian working with fictional narratives--a writer brilliantly involved in examining the moral and political effects of Puritanism in America and recreating the emotional and cultural contexts in which earlier Americans had lived.

Hailed as a landmark in Canadian literary scholarship when it was originally published in 1965, the Literary History of Canada is now being reissued, revised and enlarged, in three volumes. This major effort of a large group of scholars working in the field of English-language Canadian literature provides a comprehensive, up-to-date reference work. It has already proven itself invaluable as a source of information on authors, genres, and literary trends and influences. It represents a positive attempt to give a history of Canada in terms of writings which deserve attention because of significant thought, form, and use of language. Volume I comprises Parts I to III of the original edition, and covers the years from the beginning of Canadian literature in English to about 1920. The contributors to this volume are David Galloway, Victor G. Hopwood, Alfred G. Bailey, Fred Cogswell, James and Ruth Talman, Carl F. Klinck, Edith Gordon Roper, Rupert Schieder, S. Ross Beharriell, Brandon Conron, Elizabeth Waterston, Alec Lucas, John A. Irving, A.H. Johnson, A. Vibert Douglas, and Frank W. Watt.

The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature provides, for the first time, a history of Japanese literature with comprehensive coverage of the premodern and modern eras in a single volume. The book is arranged topically in a series of short, accessible chapters for easy access and reference, giving insight into both canonical texts and many lesser known, popular genres, from centuries-old folk literature to the detective fiction of modern times. The various period introductions provide an overview of recurrent issues that span many decades, if not centuries. The book also places Japanese literature in a wider East Asian tradition of Sinitic writing and provides comprehensive coverage of women's literature as well as new popular literary forms, including manga (comic books). An extensive bibliography of works in English enables readers to continue to explore this rich tradition through translations and secondary reading.

Volume 3 shifts its focus to Regina’s literary culture and to the coming generation of younger writers, but it continues to examine the best work from Saskatchewan. The impact, the relevance, the illuminations of our best writers’ work tend to move well beyond the borders of our province. This work transcends the regional sources of its inspiration. Just as Marilynne Robinson has much to say to Canadians about the disruptions and the graces of family life, Dianne Warren has much to say to Americans about the omnipresence of the past, the shadows it casts on people’s lives in the present. Many of our best books are nurtured by the history and the life of this province, but they spring into literature roughly in proportion to their applications and their immemorial responses to the human condition.

Saskatchewan’s literary history is both colourful and complex. It is also mature enough to deserve a critical investigation of its roots and origins, its salient features and its prominent players. This collection of scholarly essays, conceptualized and compiled by well-known Saskatchewan novelist, essayist and scholar David Carpenter, examines the Saskatchewan literary scene, from its early Aboriginal storytellers on through to the decades to the burgeoning 1970s. The dozen essays, preceded by a David Carpenter introduction, include such topics as “Our New Storytellers: Cree Literature in Saskatchewan”; “The Literary Construction of Saskatchewan before 1905: Narratives of Trade, Rebellion and Settlement” and “The New Generation: The Seventies Remembered.” Also included are special topics, among them – “Playwriting in Saskatchewan”; “Feral Muse, Angelic Muse – The Poetry of Anne Szumigalski”, and tribute pieces to John V. Hicks, R.D. Symons, Terrence Heath and Alex Karras. Contributing scholars include the likes of: Kristina Fagan, Jenny Kerber, Susan Gingell, Ken Mitchell and Martin Winquist.

This new volume of the Literary History of Canada covers the continuing development of English-Canadian writing from 1972 to 1984. As with the three earlier volumes, this book is an invaluable guide to recent developments in English-Canadian literature and a resource for both the general reader and the specialist researcher. The contributors to this volume are Laurie Ricou, David Jackel, Linda Hutcheon, Philip Stratford, Barry Cameron, Balachandra Rajan, Robert Fothergill, Brian Parker, Cynthia Zimmerman, Frances Frazer, Edith Fowke, Bruce G. Trigger, Alan C. Cairns, Douglas Williams, Carl Berger, Shirley Neuman, Raymond S. Corteen, and Francess G. Halpenny.