"The HarperCollins Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature is a renowned and much loved reference classic. With more than six thousand entries, it is the most comprehensive single-volume encyclopedia of the literature of the United States, Canada, and Latin America.".

"Based on a work first published in 1962 and last updated in 1991 under the title Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, this new edition has been completely revised for today's readers. It contains thousands of concise but complete entries on a vast variety of authors, titles, and other topics of general cultural interest, including hundreds of brand-new entries documenting all of the figures to have emerged in the literary world in the past decade.".

"Each biographical entry provides all the relevant details about an author's life, summarizes his or her major and lesser works, evaluates the critical consensus, and often lists secondary biographical and critical works. Title entries provide interesting sidelights on sources or critical reception and often provide plot synopses.

Articles on major authors and broad topics such as Jewish American literature, children's literature, humor in the United States, and motion pictures were contributed by more than 130 scholars noted in their fields."--BOOK JACKET.