New York and the Literary Imagination

Edward Margolies is professor emeritus of the City University of New York. The author of numerous books about American literary history and culture, he lives in New York.

Table of Contents



Preface     

Introduction     



PART ONE: MYTHMAKERS

1. The Old Guard

Henry James, Edith Wharton, Louis Auchincloss     

2. Immigrants

Abraham Cahan, Pietro di Donato, Mario Puzo, Oscar Hijuelos     

3. Black Manhattan

James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison     

4. First Generation or Jews Without Money

Samuel Ornitz, Michael Gold, Henry Roth, Anzia Yezierska, Daniel Fuchs, Delmore Schwartz     



PART TWO: AN AMERICAN DREAM WITH VARIATIONS

5. Struggles for Space

Stephen Crane, James Baldwin, Ann Petry, Bernard Malamud     

6. The Big Picture

William Dean Howells, John Dos Passos, Tom Wolfe, Don DeLillo     

7. The Magic, the Mystery, the Miseries

Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dawn Powell, E.L. Doctorow, Paule Marshall     

8. Darker Visions—Death and the City

Theodore Dreiser, Nathanael West, Paula Fox, Saul Bellow, Paul Auster     



PART THREE: A CENTURY OF THEATER

9. Mirrors of the City

Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Herb Gardner, and Others     



Epilogue: September 11, 2001     

Selected Bibliography     

Index