American Literature and the Academy : The Roots, Growth, and Maturity of a Profession

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

"Scholars in American literature and cultural history will be grateful for the dedicated archival research that has enabled Vanderbilt, more than any previous writer, to reveal the institutionalization in the universities of our national literature."—American Quarterly

"An indispensable source."—American Literary Realism

"A study that is not likely to find a rival for some time."—Times Literary Supplement