THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA
The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher and educational outreach entity, was founded in 1979 with grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Although its mission was a well-grounded and no-nonsense business approach to publishing, it essentially was fulfilling a long-held dream by the great critic Edmund Wilson and others. The United States of America, they felt, ought to have a publications series of high standards and high quality of production for its national literature, and it ought to reflect the diversity and traditions of all of its writing.
The first books appeared in 1982, when I first began selling new books in an independent book store here in Carlisle. (The founding of Whistlestop Bookshop was three years away.) I still have my copies of Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. I won’t tell you how many of the 300+ to date I have acquired, but I am happy to say I never regretted one. The books are remarkably beautiful and efficient and scholarly and finely-made. They are sometimes the only respectable edition available (beware of photo-offset print-on-demand editions!). The accompanying chronologies and notes and textual discussions of every volume are a joy and an education. I cannot praise them too highly.
This listing is what I carry in the store. If you would like other volumes, send me an e-mail or call the store. Enjoy browsing, buying, and owning landmark definitive editions of great writers or great American subjects.
The listings are alphabetical by author except for new or recent anthologies at the top. Older anthologies are at the bottom of the page.
The Debate on the Constitution (boxed set): Federalist and Anti-Federalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification 1787–1788
The Debate on the Constitution (boxed set): Federalist and Anti-Federalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification 1787–1788
During the secret proceedings of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the framers created a fundamentally new national plan to replace the Articles of Confederation and then submitted it to conventions in each state for ratification. The proposal was immediately greeted by a fierce storm of argument. Gathering hundreds of original texts by Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and Patrick Henry—as well as many others less well known today, this unrivaled collection allows readers to experience firsthand the intense year-long struggle that created what remains the world’s oldest working national charter.
Here in full are the essential Federalist Papers by Madison and Hamilton in their original dramatic context; the case against the new constitution by Virginian George Mason; and the crucial compromise forged by John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Massachusetts. The set also includes complete texts of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution (with all amendments); detailed biographical profiles of all authors; informative notes; and a full historical chronology.