AN AMERICAN READER

This is the centennial collection of American writings, published by the house of Putnam. A glance at the Table of Contents shows how important a part the house has played from the angle of history, entertainment, education and reflection of the time. It is a revelation, also, of the wealth of material from which Burton Rascoe had to draw, when one such names as Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, James Fenimore Cooper, Arthur Chapman, Charles Lindbergh, Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, Henry David Thoreau, Elbert Hubbard, James McNeill Whistler, John Dewey, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, Walt Whitman, Richard Hovey, Sara Teasdale, Don Marquis, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, Henry James -- and as many more, famous names in our literary heritage. History, belles lettres, poetry, fiction, adventure -- these are the main heads. The preface is a history of American publishing, only incidentally the history of the firm.... Extensive advertising campaign -- publicity. Advance order posters -- a few giant books -- circulars.