This broad introduction to Colonial American literatures brings out the comparative and transatlantic nature of the writing of this period and highlights the interactions between native, non-scribal groups, and Europeans that helped to shape early American writing.

• Situates the writing of this period in its various historical and cultural contexts, including colonialism, imperialism, diaspora, and nation formation.
  
• Highlights interactions between native, non-scribal groups and Europeans during the early centuries of exploration.
  
• Covers a wide range of approaches to defining and reading early American writing.
  
• Looks at the development of regional spheres of influence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
  
• Serves as a vital adjunct to Castillo and Schweitzer’s ‘The Literatures of Colonial America: An Anthology’ (Blackwell Publishing, 2001).

Susan Castillo is John Nichol Professor of American Literature at Glasgow University. Her books include Notes from the Periphery: Marginality in North American Literature and Culture (1995), Engendering Identities (1996) and Native American Women in Literature and Culture (1997, with Victor Da Rosa).

Ivy Schweitzer is Associate Professor of English at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, and teaches in the Women's Studies, Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies Programs. She is the author of The Work of Self-Representation: Lyric Poetry in Colonial New England (1991).

Together, they are also the editors of The Literatures of Colonial America: An Anthology (Blackwell Publishing, 2001).