American Lit--top 10 for pre & during Civil War history

[Storm Bay]

What are your top 10 must read literary picks to correlate with American History 1? Most of the ones I can think of are British or too late. I'm looking for some American lit written at the time, some historical fiction & anything else worthy of reading. I'm not sure if dd would be into Gone with the Wind or if that actually is good historical lit (I read it in high school & when I tried it again as an adult couldn't stand Scarlett anymore so didn't finish it.)

 

I have read Enemy Women, though. If you've read that, do you think it good for a high school student for one for the Civil War?

[Lori D.]

Re: Gone with the Wind -- I read it many years ago, so I may be mis-remembering the novel, but it struck me as a cross between a soap opera and a romance novel. I certainly wouldn't call it classic lit., but I suppose it could be used as historical fiction.

 

This is not an answer to your specific questions on specific works, but in case it helps, below are the "hits" and "misses" of our American Lit. from this past year, done with two DSs (gr. 10 and gr. 11). We also read about 75% of the works in "American Voices", the source document companion volume to Notgrass' American History, so we did get some speeches, autobiography excerpts, essay excerpts, etc. from that, too, and counted it towards history rather than literature.

 

Hope something here is of help! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

HITS

- young adult fiction: The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

(young adult fiction work on censorship, centering on a town debating whether or not to ban Huck Finn; DSs really loved the debates in the book; we read this while reading Huck Finn)

- short story: Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Bierce)

- short story: The Luck of Roaring Camp (Harte)

- short story: Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane)

- short story: Gift of the Magi (Henry)

- short story: The Ransom of Red Chief (Henry)

- short story: The Last Leaf (Henry)

- short story: A Harlem Tragedy (Henry)

- short story: The Most Dangerous Game (Connell)

- short story: Thank You, Ma'am (Hughes)

- short story: The Catbird Seat (Thurber)

- short story: A Good Man is Hard to Find (O'Connor)

- short story: Everything That Rises Must Converge (O'Connor)

- short story: Revelation (O'Connor)

 

 

ENJOYED

- short story: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving)

- short story: Rip Van Winkle (Irving)

- short story: Fall of the House of Usher (Poe)

- poem: "The Raven" (Poe)

- novel: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) (DSs liked Tom Sawyer, read in a previous year, a bit more)

- novel: Call of the Wild (London)

- novel: The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) (a delightful surprise for all of us; while a tragedy, we all loved the lovely writing)

- short story: There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury)

- short story: The Lottery (Jackson)

- short story: The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas (LeGuin)

 

 

INTERESTING

- excerpts; autobiog: Frederick Douglass

- novella: The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)

- novella: The Pearl (Steinbeck)

- novella: I Heard the Owl Call My Name (Craven)

(I found this to be powerful, poignant and very moving; this was the last work of the school year, and I think DSs were just ready to be DONE with school, otherwise I think they would have enjoyed it more)

 

 

ONLY OKAY

- all the poets -- DSs are just not "into" poetry; only exception: they did like Longfellow's famous story-like poems of The Villiage Blacksmith and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (Anne Bradstreet; Phyllis Wheatly, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, E.E. Cummings,)

- novel: The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne) -- DSs liked the story and themes, but found the writing style stiff going

- short story: The Man Without a Country (Hale)

(overly long to get to the point; more "telling" than "showing" which made it a weaker story than it could have been; more useful for a sense of the historical times than as classic literature)

 

 

ENDURED

- novella: Billy Budd (Melville)

(DSs absolutely hated Melville's complex, long writing style and what they called his chapter-long "rambling tangents")

- excerpts: essays: Ralph Waldo Emerson

(DSs were totally irked by the faulty worldview; they also said they thought Emerson needed a "dope slap of reality" of really having to get out in the world and do hard work to earn a living and he would have quickly realized how unrealistic his transcendentalism was)

- excerpts: essays: Henry David Thoreau

(DSs are just not "into" these 1800s essayists)

[Lori D.]

Done in previous years and really enjoyed:

- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)

- Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)

- Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)

- Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury)

- R is For Rocket (Bradbury)

- Earthsea trilogy: Wizard of Earthsea; Tombs of Atuan; The Farthest Shore (LeGuin)

[Guest]

If you are including non-fiction reading in your list of possibilities, I just finished a very weird, very compelling, book called Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. He goes on a tour of war sites in the southern states; the book mixes historical information with his experiences, people's reminiscing about their heritage, and some of the ways that southerners think about their confederate history. Absolutely fascinating. There's a chapter on the marketing of Gone With the Wind and its appeal to Japanese tourists, along with the story of a woman who makes her livelihood doing Scarlett impersonations.

 

Gone With the Wind is actually interesting to incorporate into Civil War studies because it is a good example of the apologetic view of slavery: how it was really wonderful for everybody and how it worked out for the best for all involved. There are lingering sentiments similar to this that Tony Horwitz finds in his tour.

[Storm Bay]

Thanks Lori & KarenAnne. This gives me a good start. I've actually read some of those, but had forgotten them or didn't know when they were written. Actually, I was going to take people's top ten lists & go over them with my dd & figure out 10 books, spread out. She has to read at least 10, but I find letting her have a say in the choices helps a great deal.. This gives me a lot more, & I'll have this for my younger dc. I think it's interesting about Scarlett & Japanese women, because Anne from Anne of Green Gables is another popular figure with Japanese women. Some even have weddings with Anne of Green Gable themes, etc.

 

If anyone has any suggestions not here, I'd be happy to see them.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Karin

[Guest]

I think it's interesting about Scarlett & Japanese women, because Anne from Anne of Green Gables is another popular figure with Japanese women. Some even have weddings with Anne of Green Gable themes, etc.

 

 

Oh, tell me where to have a look at this! I find this absolutely fascinating!

[Ida]

I would think that the most obvious must-read for Civil War era would be Uncle Tom's Cabin.

[Faithr]

Pre-Civil war - The Scarlet Letter, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

 

Civil War - Red Badge of Courage

 

Post Civil War but set before Civil War - Huckleberry Finn

 

Post Civil War/Western Expansion/Immigrant story - My Antonia

 

My teens loved every one of these books, though they found the intro to The Scarlet Letter offputting. The actual story though was really appreciated by them and they loved Hawthorne's writing style. Huckleberry Finn was great except that we didn't like the way the character of Tom Sawyer took over at the end. We'd come to love Huck's wisdom so much and Tom just comes across as crass and shallow. Red Badge of Courage is almost dreamlike in the way it is written; very gripping and very hard to put down! And My Antonia is achingly poignant though again the teens were disappointed by the ending. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was fascinating as none of us knew much about him. My teens were incredibly impressed by his intelligence and nobility.

 

I would have added in Uncle Tom's Cabin but we just didn't have time.

[LatinTea]

Oh, tell me where to have a look at this! I find this absolutely fascinating!

 

http://anneofjapan.com/overview.html

 

This has some background on this topic. There may be better sites, but this one is pretty interesting. :)

[LibraryLover]

Not mentioned that we have enjoyed:

 

Little Women

Across Five Aprils

Killer Angels

 

I have a list, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind at first consideration.

[Guest]

http://anneofjapan.com/overview.html

 

This has some background on this topic. There may be better sites, but this one is pretty interesting. :)

 

Wow -- don't mean to hijack, but this is so amazing. I never imagined anything like this!

[Storm Bay]

Oh, tell me where to have a look at this! I find this absolutely fascinating!

 

I read about it in a newspaper Sunday magazine about 8-10 years ago, so I don't have a link. However, many of them visit PEI (aka Prince Edward Island) to see the Anne of Green Gables exhibits, and some even get married there. Some even wear red wigs.

 

http://anneofjapan.com/overview.html

 

This has some background on this topic. There may be better sites, but this one is pretty interesting. :)

 

Thanks for the link!

[Storm Bay]

Thanks for the additional titles--I'm adding them to my list to go through for my dd and will save the whole thing to go through with my other dc when we get there.

[Nicole M]

I would think that the most obvious must-read for Civil War era would be Uncle Tom's Cabin.

 

Yes. I'm in the process of pre-reading my son's literature selections for next year, and I just read the introduction to Uncle Tom's Cabin yesterday; we have the Barns & Noble Classic edition. It was fascinating, and I think the book would make an interesting contrast to Gone with the Wind. If you can find the edition of Gone with the Wind with the Pat Conroy introduction, it's also good. I never could make it through the book itself, but I did love his explanation of the impact of that book on the southern community.

 

The introduction in the Barns & Noble edition of Frederick Douglass' Narrative is also very fine, and rather moving. Who'd a thunk it that B & N would have such great introductions?

 

ETA: I know it doesn't sound like it from this post, but I do also read the actual books, not just the introductions. :)

[Kareni]

ETA: I know it doesn't sound like it from this post, but I do also read the actual books, not just the introductions. :)

 

Uh-huh, of course you do. (You probably do all the problems in your math books, too.)

 

It's a sad commentary though when the introduction is the best part of the book.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[memphispeg]

Annnndddd heelllpppp here!!!! Postwar college-level American fiction (I am teaching an "AP style" course)!!!!!

[memphispeg]

Nicole - if you do GWTW, do War and Peace sometime too. Fabulous study of war and society betw. the 2 of them!!!!

[Lori D.]

Novels

Booth Tarkington (The Magnificent Ambersons)

Henry James (Washington Square; Turn of the Screw)

William Faulkner (Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom!)

Eudora Welty

Sinclair Lewis (Babbit; Elmer Gantry)

Edith Wharton (Age of Innocence; The House of Mirth; Ethan Fromme)

Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)

Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop)

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ernest Hemingway (Farewell to Arms; The Sun Also Rises)

John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath; Of Mice and Men)

Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)

J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye)

Chaim Potok (The Chosen)

Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Ralph Ellison (The Invisible Man)

Ray Bradbury (Farenheit 451; Dandelion Wine)

Walter Miller (A Canticle for Leibowitz)

Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood; The Violent Bear it Away)

Truman Capote (In Cold Blood)

Toni Morrison

Ursula LeGuin (Left Hand of Darkness; Lathe of Heaven)

Amy Tan (Joy Luck Club)

N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn)

Sandra Cisneros (House on Mango Street)

Maryilynne Robison (Gilead)

Wendell Berry

Frederick Buechner (On the Road with the Archangel)

 

 

Plays

Thornton Wilder (Our Town)

Eugene O'Neill

Tennessee Williams (Glass Menagerie)

Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun)

Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman)

Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead)

 

 

Short Stories

Henry James (The Real Thing; The Golden Bowl)

Kate Chopin

Ambrose Bierce (Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge)

Bret Harte (Outcasts of Poker Flat; Luck of Roaring Camp)

Stephen Crane (The Open Boat)

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Katherine Anne Porter

James Thurber (The Catbird Seat)

Langston Hughes

Sherwood Anderson

Flannery O'Connor (A Good Man is Hard to Find; Everything That Rises Must Converge)

Shirley Jackson (The Lottery)

Ursula LeGuin (The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas)

 

 

Poets

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman

Ezra Pound

Langston Hughes

T.S. Eliot (who later became a British citizen)

Sylvia Plath

Anne Sexton

Allen Ginsberg ("Howl")

Elizabeth Bishop

Robert Lowell

Richard Wilbur

W.S. Merwin

Mark Strand

Jane Kenyon

Donald Hall

[Nicole M]

Uh-huh, of course you do. (You probably do all the problems in your math books, too.)

 

It's a sad commentary though when the introduction is the best part of the book.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

;)

 

You know, I've learned the hard way to read introductions before the book. I've been blindsided too often by "classics" that seem either incomprehensible, silly or exasperating. I remember reading The Iliad, getting as far as the scene where Achilles is crying by the river, "Mommy! Mommy! He stole my concubine!" and thinking, holy hell, if this is the foundation of western civilization, we are screwed. I had to watch the Elizabeth Vandiver lectures twice before I could shake the feeling of utter disgust.

 

I've now finished reading Douglass' actual Narrative and was very moved. I am glad to have read the introduction first, because some of the opening scenes are so disturbing (though I hardly know why I should expect otherwise) that it was good to have some warning. And because I read the introduction, the themes and literary devices Douglass used were immediately recognizable. Also, in the introduction, this whole business of "trickster tales," Brer Rabbit, is drawn out, and that was fascinating. So now I can connect those childhood stories to the Narrative, and that was a huge a-ha for me. Anyhoo, I learned much more than I ever would have imagined.

 

I now highly recommend Douglass' Narrative.

[Storm Bay]

Thanks for the post-war books, which I'll save for American History 2, plus the other newer suggestions.