Letters from an American Farmer and Other Essays

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

Edited by Dennis D. Moore

Introduction by Dennis D. Moore

“Dennis Moore’s new edition of the writings of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur makes available, for the first time to the wider public, both canonical and less well-known archival materials by this classic and foundational early American author. The result is a Crèvecoeur who is notable less for his provincial agrarianism and more for a cosmopolitanism that is deeply engaged with the global implications of the American hemisphere in world history and literature. Moore’s introduction and edition are both scholastically impeccable and immensely readable, making this book useful for teaching and invaluable to scholarship.”—Ralph Bauer, University of Maryland

“Moore’s edition supplants earlier versions of this foundational early American text. Moore’s graceful introduction deftly weaves together both traditional and emergent interpretations of Crèvecoeur, and his selection of an additional 13 essays further serves to open up new interpretive horizons and critical possibilities. Scholars of early American culture will find much to admire in this thought-provoking edition, and—without question—their students will find it an engaging and invaluable resource.”—Duncan Faherty, Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center

“With the help of Moore’s clear, insightful introduction and the inclusion of 13 additional letters, we find in this new edition a Crèvecoeur who is deeply enmeshed in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, and who is self-conscious about his literary aspirations; we find a Farmer James whose voice becomes more distinctive and more compelling alongside a larger set of narrators; and we find a text that is far more ambitious, more poignant, and more complex than we have been reading to date. This edition will quickly become a standard for both students and scholars of early America.”—Cristobal Silva, Columbia University

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