The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

Mark Twain

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Read On!

School is about the only place where you have to read literature, but all of us confront and interpret the stuff of literature--language, people, nature, and ideas--every day of our lives. Reading great novels and poems, then, can make us better readers of our world. More than a means of education, reading also can entertain, move, even transform us. What follows is a list of some literary works that I have found worthwhile and that I recommend to anyone interested in picking up or continuing the hobby of reading. Many of these works, such as In Cold Blood and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, deeply affected me. I hope they will bring you the same intellectual, emotional, and spiritual satisfaction that they brought me.

As a slow reader, I recognize the challenge in taking on a difficult piece of literature. I recommend starting with something short and manageable, such as Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Masque of the Red Death" or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Nature." Look for works about topics that interest you. If you like movies about young people, for example, try Judith Guest's novel Ordinary People or Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy. To help you, I have arranged my recommendations roughly by topic and have compiled several tips for reading and taking notes on a site calledBe Your Best. Even if you find that you don't like a work right away, go ahead and finish it and immediately start on another work. Like playing tennis or the piano, reading takes patience and effort, but pays off with satisfaction and enjoyment. Finally, make a habit of reading. If you read only 20 pages a day, you can read a novel in a couple of weeks. If you can read 40 or 50 pages a day--perhaps by reading for an hour over lunch and an hour after dinner--you can read a book every week, 50 a year!

Short Stories

Humorous Stories

• "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," by Mark Twain
• "The Big Bear of Arkansas," by T.B. Thorpe
• "The Captain Attends a Camp Meeting," by Johnson Jones Hooper

Stories of Mystery, Horror, or Suspense

• "The Masque of the Red Death," by Edgar Allan Poe
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," by Edgar Allan Poe
• "The Turn of the Screw," by Henry James

Stories Beautifully Told

• "Barn Burning," by William Faulkner
• "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed," by Mark Twain
• "The Ugliest Pilgrim," by Doris Betts
• "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane
• "The Blue Hotel," by Stephen Crane

Poems

• Beowulf, anonymous
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, anonymous
• Sonnets by William Shakespeare
• "The Rape of the Lock," by Alexander Pope
• "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The Complete English Poems, by John Donne
• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
• Evangeline and Other Poems, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Poems, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman
• Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Novels

Novels About Young People

• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• Ordinary People, by Judith Guest
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
• The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane

Novels of Adventure

• Dracula, by Bram Stoker
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Edgar Allan Poe
• Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
• Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
• The Pathfinder, by James Fenimore Cooper

Novels with Fascinating Characters

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
• In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
• The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Just Plain Great Novel

• Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Plays

Humorous Plays

• True West, by Sam Shepard
• The Way of the World, by William Congreve
• The Rivals, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Dramatic Plays

• Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller
• Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
• Long Day's Journey Into Night, by Eugene O'Neill
• Curse of the Starving Class, by Sam Shepard
• A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt
• A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams
• The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams

Nonfiction Books

Autobiography

• Black Boy, by Richard Wright
• The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston
• The Autobiography, by Benjamin Franklin

Books About Science

• The Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan
• Searching for Memory, by Daniel Schacter
• Touched with Fire, by Kay Redfield Jamison

Books About History

• China Men, by Maxine Hong Kingston

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Classics

"I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to," Mark Twain told an audience in 1900. "That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic--something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

Some classic literary works, including many of the ones in the list above, are accessible to people who have not read a lot of literature. As Twain points out, however, other classics are so challenging that they scare off potential readers. While you probably don't want to dive into one of the works below immediately after your first college course in literature, you may try to tackle one after you have warmed up with some easier works. Often a great challenge pays off with great rewards.

Novels

• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

Plays

• Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
• King Lear, by William Shakespeare
• Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
• Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe

Nonfiction

• Pragmatism, by William James
• Areopagitica, by John Milton

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A Reading List for Scholars of American Literature

I have assembled the following list of suggested reading to help you continue your education after this course. While I think this list will prove especially useful to English majors interested in strengthening their backgrounds in American literature, the works listed here can provide rich, interesting reading experiences for anyone with an active, open mind. Like the course itself, this list is organized by period and genre. Most of the dates that appear in parentheses are the years of publication; if the work was not published until many decades after its composition, I have given the approximate date of composition instead.

Cultural Contact and Exploration (1500-1600)

Native American Literature

• Richard Erdoes and Alfonzo Ortiz, American Myths and Legends
• "Changing Woman and the Hero Twins after the Emergence of the People"
• "Wohpe and the Gift of the Pipe"
• "The Origin of Stories"
• "The Bungling Host"
• "The Creation of the Whites"
• "Deer Hunting Song"
• "Song of Repulse to a Vain Lover"
• "A Dream Song"
• "Formula to Secure Love"

Exploration Narratives

• Christopher Columbus, Journal of the First Voyage to America, 1492-1493
• Christopher Columbus, Narrative of the Third Voyage, 1498-1500
• Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1542)
• Fray Marcos de Niza, A Relation of the Reverend Father Fray Marcos de Niza Touching His Discovery of the Kingdom of Ceuola or Cibola... (1539)
• Pedro de Casteneda, The Narrative of the Expedition of Coronado (1560)
• Gentleman of Elvas, The Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida
• Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere, A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certaine French Captaines unto Florida
• Richard Hakluyt, Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America (1582)
• Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Traffics, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation
• Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)
• Samuel de Champlain, The Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, 1604-1618
• Gaspar de Villagra, The History of New Mexico (1616)
• John Smith, A Description of New England (1616)
• John Smith, The General Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (1624)
• John Smith, A Map of Virginia
• John Smith, New England's Trials

Settlement (1600-1700)

Puritan Writings

• John Winthrop, John Winthrop's Christian Experience (1637)
• John Winthrop, The Journal of John Winthrop
• Thomas Morton, New English Canaan (1637)
• The Bay Psalm Book
• The New England Primer
• Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643)
• Roger Williams, "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution" (1644)
• Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650)
• Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (Second Edition) (1678)
• Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom (1662)
• Michael Wigglesworth, Meat Out of the Eater (1670)
• Michael Wigglesworth, God's Controversy with New-England (1662)
• Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Rowlandson (1682)
• Edward Taylor, The Psalm Paraphrases
• Edward Taylor, God's Determinations Touching His Elect (1680)
• Edward Taylor, Occasional Poems
• Edward Taylor, Preparatory Meditations (1682-1725)
• Samuel Sewall, The Diary of Samuel Sewall (1673)
• Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (1692)
• Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the Ecclesiastical History of the New England (1702)
• Cotton Mather, Bonifacius or Essays to Do Good (1710)
• Jonathan Edwards, "Resolutions" (1722-1723)
• Jonathan Edwards, "A Divine and Spiritual Light" (1733)
• Jonathan Edwards, "A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God" (1736)
• Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741)
• Jonathan Edwards, The Freedom of the Will (1754)
• Jonathan Edwards, "Dissertation: Concerning the End for Which God Created the World" (1765)
• Sarah Kemble Knight, The Journal of Madam Knight (1704-1705)

Colonial Period (1700-1783)

Personal Writings

• William Byrd, History of the Dividing Line (1730)
• William Byrd, Secret Diary (c.1730)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Silence Dogood" essays (1722)
• Benjamin Franklin, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain" (1725)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Plan of Conduct" (1726)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Epitaph" (1728)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Busy-Body" (1729)
• Benjamin Franklin, "A Witch Trial at Mount Holly" (1730)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Rules for a Club Formerly Established in Philadelphia" (1732)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Proposals and Queries to Be Asked the Junto" (1732)
• Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1733-1758)
• Benjamin Franklin, "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America" (1743)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Speech of Miss Polly Baker" (1747)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Kite Experiment" (1751)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Way to Wealth" (1758)
• Benjamin Franklin, "A Narrative of the Late Massacres, in Lancaster County, of a Number of Indians" (1764)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Grand Leap of the Whale" (1765)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One" (1773)
• Benjamin Franklin, "An Edict by the King of Prussia" (1773)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Sale of the Hessians" (1777)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Ephemera" (1778)
• Benjamin Franklin, "The Elysian Fields" (1778)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" (1783)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (1784)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Speech in Convention" (1787)
• Benjamin Franklin, "Letter to Ezra Stiles" (1790)
• Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (1790)
• John Woolman, The Journal of John Woolman (1774)
• Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge (1755)
• Jean de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

Independence (1783-1817)

Early Belles-Lettres

• Ebenezer Cook, "The Sot-weed Factor (1708)
• Joel Barlow, "The Hasty-Pudding" (1793)
• Joel Barlow, The Columbiad (1807)
• Philip Freneau, "The Indian Burial Ground," "To Sir Toby," "On a Honey Bee"
• Philip Freneau, "To Sir Toby"
• Royall Tyler, The Contrast (1787)
• Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," "On the Death of Mr. George Whitefield," "Thoughts on the Works of Providence," "To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works," "To His Excellency General Washington"
• William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy (1789)
• Hannah Foster, The Coquette (1797)
• Susannah Haswell Rowson, Charlotte Temple (1791)
• Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)
• Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly (1799)
• Washington Irving, A History of New York (1809)
• Washington Irving, The Sketch Book (1819)
• Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveller (1824)
• Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra (1832)

Development (1817-1848)

Sentimentalism

• Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok (1824)
• Catharine Sedwick, Hope Leslie (1827)
• Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World (1850)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
• Sarah Parker Willis [Fanny Fern], Ruth Hall (1855)
• Maria Cummins, The Lamplighter (1854)

Humor of the Old Southwest

• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Georgia Scenes (1835)
• Davy Crockett, The Crockett Almanacs (1835-1856)
• Thomas Bangs Thorpe, "The Big Bear of Arkansas" (1841)
• Johnson Jones Hooper, Adventures of Simon Suggs Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers (1845)
• George Washington Harris, Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun by a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, Warped and Wove for Public Wear (1867)

Transcendentalism

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (1841)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series (1844)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems (1847)
• Margaret Fuller, "The Great Lawsuit"
• Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes (1844)
• Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844)
• Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
• Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (1849)
• Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

American Romanticism

• James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (1823)
• James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
• James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie (1827)
• James Fenimore Cooper, The Pathfinder (1840)
• James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer (1841)
• Edgar Allan Poe, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829)
• Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838)
• Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)
• Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
• Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846)
• Edgar Allan Poe, "Ulalume" (1847), "The Bells" (1849), "Annabel Lee" (1849)
• Edgar Allan Poe,Eureka (1848)
• Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle" (1850)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice-Told Tales (1837 and 1842)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables (1851)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1851)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (1852)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun (1860)
• Herman Melville, Typee (1846)
• Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
• Herman Melville, Pierre, or the Ambiguities (1852)
• Herman Melville, The Piazza Tales (1856)
• Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man (1857)
• Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)
• Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (c.1890)

History Writing

• Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail (1849)

Conflict and Civil War (1849-1865)

Slave Narratives

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Poetry of the American Renaissance

• William Cullen Bryant, Poems (1821)
• William Cullen Bryant, "The Prairies" (1833)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poems (1836)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poetical Works (1852)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night (1839)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems (1841)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline (1847)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Nature" (1877), "The Cross of Snow" (1879)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Ballads and Other Poems (1844)
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Voices of Freedom (1846)
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Songs of Labor (1850)
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Home Ballads and Other Poems (1860)
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Snow-Bound (1866)
• James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1846)
• James Russell Lowell, A Fable for Critics (1848)
• Henry Timrod, Poems (1860)
• Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855-1892), Democratic Vistas (1870)
• Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (c.1858-1886)

Reconstruction (1865-1877)

Regionalism

• Mark Twain, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865)
• Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
• Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)
• Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
• Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883)
• Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
• Mark Twain, The Private History of a Campaign That Failed (1885)
• Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
• Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
• Mark Twain, "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1900)
• Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
• Ambrose Bierce, "The Boarded Window"
• Ambrose Bierce, "Incident at Owl Creek Bridge"
• George Washington Cable, "Belles Demoiselles Plantation"
• Hamlin Garland, "Under the Lion's Paw"
• Joel Chandler Harris, "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story"
• Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"
• Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
• James Whitcomb Riley
• William Sydney Porter [O. Henry], "A Municipal Report," "The Gift of the Magi"
• Charles Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman (1899)
• Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition (1901)
• Kate Chopin, Bayou Folk (1894)
• Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Age of Industry (1877-1914)

Popular Fiction

• Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-1869)
• Louisa May Alcott, Work (1873)
• William G. Patten [Burt L. Standish], Frank Merriwell's Schooldays (1896)
• Frank Stockton, "The Lady or the Tiger?" (1882)
• Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880)
• Elizabeth Spencer Phelps Ward, The Gate's Ajar (1868)
• Elizabeth Spencer Phelps Ward, The Story of Avis (1877)
• Frances E.W. Harper, Iola Leroy (1892)
• Gene Stratton Porter, Freckles (1904)
• Gene Stratton Porter, A Girl of the Limberlost (1909)

Popular Poetry

• Sydney Lanier, "The Marshes of Glynn," "Sunrise"
• Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"
• Lizette Woodworth Reese, "The White Fury of Spring"
• Ernest Lawrence Thayer, "Casey at the Bat" (1888)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar,

Realism

• Henry James, Roderick Hudson (1876)
• Henry James, The American (1877)
• Henry James, The Europeans (1878)
• Henry James, Daisy Miller (1878)
• Henry James, The Madonna of the Future and Other Tales (1879)
• Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
• Henry James, "The Art of Fiction" (1884)
• Henry James, The Bostonians (1886)
• Henry James, The Real Thing and Other Tales (1893)
• Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)
• Henry James, The Ambassadors (1903)
• Henry James, The Golden Bowl (1904)
• William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance (1882)
• William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
• William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890)
• William Dean Howells, Criticism and Fiction (1891)
• Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
• Edith Wharton, Ethan Fromme (1911)
• Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920)

Naturalism

• Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)
• Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1894)
• Stephen Crane, Black Riders (1895)
• Stephen Crane, The Openn Boat and Other Stories (1898)
• Stephen Crane, War Is Kind (1899)
• Stephen Crane, The Monster and Other Stories (1899)
• Frank Norris, McTeague (1899)
• Frank Norris, The Pit (1903)
• Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)
• Theodore Dreiser, The Financier (1912)
• Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy (1925)

Nonfiction

• Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901)
• Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
• Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
• William James, Pragmatism(1907)
• W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

World Wars (1914-1945)

Modernism

• T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915)
• T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)
• T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets (1943)
• Ezra Pound, The Cantos
• Robert Frost, A Boy's Will (1913)
• Robert Frost, North of Boston (1914)
• Robert Frost, Mountain Interval (1916)
• Robert Frost, New Hampshire (1923)
• Robert Frost, West-Running Brook (1928)
• Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
• William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
• William Faulkner, Absalom Absalom
• Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
• Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
• Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Ernest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night (1934)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920)
• Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
• Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
• Willa Cather, My Antonia
• Wallace Stevens, Harmonium (1923)
• Wallace Stevens, Ideas of Order (1935)
• William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923)
• William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946-1958)
• Katharine Anne Porter, Flowering Judas (1929)

Nonfiction

• Black Elk and John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (1932)

Harlem Renaissance

• Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)
• Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues (1926)
• Langston Hughes, Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
• Langston Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
• Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
• Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)
• Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945)
• Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
• James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

Cold War and Fin de Siecle (1945-today)

Modern Drama

• Eugene O'Neill, The Emperor Jones (1920)
• Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown (1926)
• Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh (1946)
• Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956)
• Eugene O'Neill, A Touch of the Poet (1957)
• Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944)
• Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
• Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
• Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)
• Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)
• Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962)

Contemporary Poetry

• Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (1956)
• Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen (1949)
• Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters (1960)

Contemporary Fiction

• Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955)
• Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965)
• John Updike, Rabbit, Run (1960)
• Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

Contemporary Nonfiction

• Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (1976)
• Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men (1980)