Condition: Good: Good condition for a used book! Some wear. Dark green cloth over boards with gilt lettering on spine, black top edge. Endpapers are browning. Pages very clean, no marks, no tears. Property of the USS Nevada stamped inside front cover so this book has a very historic past life. Corners bumped. See images for the condition of this book. First Printing of the First Modern Library Giant Edition.
Blurb: A scholarly assessment of the range of American literature, chiefly fiction, by the prolific novelist, literary critic and professor Ludwig Lewisohn (1882-1955).
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF The Story of American Literature No history of American criticism can ignore the contributions of Ludwig Lewisohn. Over a period embracing the World War and its long after math, his writings have given a new impetus and scope to the evaluation of American literature. Always enlightened and just, realistic and sensitive, Mr. Lewisohns books are all devoted to a search of essences in personality and ideas. He is equally the creator and critic. His work is both adventurous and solidly rooted in tradition, wide in its range and sure in its discrimination. Born in Berlin in 1883, Ludwig Lewisohn was brought to America when he was seven years old. He received a wholly American education, at first at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, and later at Columbia, University. As a teacher, at the University of Wisconsin and Ohio State University, 1910-1918, he exercised a strong literary influence over his students. From the academic world he moved into the more exciting field of journalism and then became drama critic on the staff of The Nation, 1918-1924. For a number of years he lived in Europe and repeatedly visited Palestine and North Africa. He is the author of twenty-five volumes, embracing criticism, biography and fiction. His critical works include The Modern Drama, The Creative Life, The Drama and the Stage, Cities and Men, The Story of American Literature, of which the last named, here amplified and reprinted, is undoubtedly the culmination. Among his novels, those that have become integral parts of modern literature, not only at home but in translation in countries as diverse as Sweden and France, are The Case of Mr. Crump, The Island Within, Stephen Escott, The Last Days of Shylock, The Golden Vase, Trumpet of ubilee. The same may be said of his two autobiographical volumes, Up Stream and Mid-Channel. For many years now he has given a great part of his time and strength to the service of the Zionist cause. He resides in New Rochelle, New York, with his wife, Thelma Spear Lewisohn, the concert singer, and their son.