《美国文学新编》系根据我国高等院校英语专业高年级美国文学课程的教学需要编写而成的教材。本书在编写过程中注意汲取近年来国内外有关美国文学的教学与研究成果，力求观点客观全面，论述深入浅出，文字浅显流畅。本书既可用作英语专业本科教材，又可作为英语专业自考生的学习参考书，具有如下特点：
以简洁的语言系统梳理美国文学的发展脉络，并提供各历史阶段的社会背景介绍，方便学生掌握史实。
所选名著均附有详尽的注释，帮助学生充分理解作品，提高赏析能力。
练习设计形式多样，客观练习题与启发性思考题兼备，培养学生思辨能力。
内容编排治理，教师可灵活采用史、选结合或者史、选分离两种方式授课。

在内容设计上，本书将文学发展史介绍与经典作品选读融为一体。以史带文，文史结合，二者相辅相成。简明扼要、重点突出是本书的编写特色；每部分包括该时期的文学史、作家介绍、作品简介、代表作品选、注释以及部分选文的评论六个部分。修订版还根据教学需要以及学生在学习美国文学中遇到的实际困难，增加了“文学术语”和“参考书目”；同时每一章节之后均增设“练习”，并在书末附有参考答案。本书在编写过程中注意汲取近年来国内外有关美国文学的教学与研究成果，力求观点客观全面、论述深入浅出、文字浅显流畅。

Part Ⅰ The Early American Literature (1620-1770)
Chapter Ⅰ The Seventeenth Century Literature
Puritanism in American Literature
Chapter 2 The Eighteenth Century Literature
Enlightenment in American Literature
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography
Philip Freneau
To the Memory of the Brave Americans
The Wild Honey Suckle
Part Ⅱ The Age of Romanticism (1770-1875)
Chapter 3 American Literature of Pre-Romanticism
The Rise of Romanticism
Washington Irving
Rip Van Winkle Part Ⅰ The Early American Literature (1620-1770)
Chapter Ⅰ The Seventeenth Century Literature
Puritanism in American Literature
Chapter 2 The Eighteenth Century Literature
Enlightenment in American Literature
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography
Philip Freneau
To the Memory of the Brave Americans
The Wild Honey Suckle
Part Ⅱ The Age of Romanticism (1770-1875)
Chapter 3 American Literature of Pre-Romanticism
The Rise of Romanticism
Washington Irving
Rip Van Winkle
William Cullen Bryant
To a Waterfowl
Chapter 4 American Literature of Post-Romanticism
New England Transcendentalism
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Song of Myself
I Hear America Singing
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen
The Raven
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Emily Dickinson
Poems (67, 303, 449, 1129)
Part Ⅲ The Age of Realism and Naturalism(1875-1914)
Chapter 5 American Literature of the Middle and Late 19th
Century
Realism in America
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 6 American Literature at the Turn of the Century
Naturalism in America
Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Richard Cory
Miniver Cheevy
Theodore Dreiser
Sister Carrie
Part Ⅳ The Twentieth Century American Literature(1914-2000)
Chapter 7 American Literature Between the Two World Wars
American Modernism
Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms
Ezra Pound
A Pact
In a Station of the Metro
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Robert Lee Frost
Mending Wall
The Road Not Taken
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
William Faulkner
Dry September
Chapter 8 American Literature Since 1945 American Post-Modernism
Joseph Heller
Catch-22
Allen Ginsberg
Howl
Robert Lowell
Katherine's Dream
The Drinker
Alice Walker
Everyday Use
Key to Exercises
Literary Terms