The American Novel series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to great works of American literature. Each volume begins with a substantial introduction by a distinguished authority on the text, giving details of the work's composition, publication history, and contemporary reception, as well as a survey of the major critical trends and readings from first publication to the present.

This overview is followed by a group of new essays, each specially commissioned from a leading scholar in the field, which together constitute a forum of interpretative methods and prominent contemporary ideas on the text. There are also helpful guides to further reading. Specifically designed for undergraduates, the series will be a powerful resource for anyone engaged in the critical analysis of major American novels and other important texts.

1. The essays collected here, written by leading critics of Toni Morrison's work, exemplify the fresh theoretical and cultural perspectives that have been brought to bear upon African American texts in general and upon Song of Solomon in particular. They reveal the complexities of a deceptively straightforward novel, at once acknowledging and kindling renewed interest in what has proved a pivotal text by one of the most gifted authors this nation has produced.