EditorsRoom.net - The Library of America

The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher, is dedicated to publishing, and keeping in print, authoritative editions of America's best and most significant writing.

Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as the "quasi-official national canon" of American literature, The Library of America each year adds new volumes collecting essential novels, stories, poetry, plays, essays, journalism, historical writing, speeches, and more. (For a complete list of titles arranged by subject, click here.)

Recent and forthcoming volumes feature the work of Saul Bellow, Elizabeth Bishop, Philip K. Dick, Jack Kerouac, A. J. Liebling, William Maxwell, Thornton Wilder, and Edmund Wilson, as well as the definitive edition of Philip Roth's collected works.
The best-selling authors in the series include James Baldwin, Robert Frost, Dashiell Hammett, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Jefferson, H. P. Lovecraft, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Paine, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Walt Whitman.
The Library of America also recently published the special anthologies American Food Writing and American Religious Poems.

Library of America volumes may be purchased individually (directly from this Web site, from many online booksellers, or from your local bookstore) or by subscription at discounts of more than 30%.

"A door-busting bargain — the best collectibles at the price in all of American publishing." — Los Angeles Times

A total of approximately 250,000 copies of Library of America volumes are sold each year. Nevertheless, revenue from the sales of the volumes does not cover the cost to prepare, market, and manufacture them. Like other nonprofit endeavors, The Library of America does not charge its audience—that is, its readers—the full cost of the service it provides. To do so would make the volumes too costly for many people and thus severely limit the audience for the series. (The price per page of Library of America volumes remains lower than virtually any other hardcover book and many paperbacks.)

Seed money to create the series was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation for the first three years. Since then The Library of America has received no regular funding from any foundation or government agency and must seek grants and contributions each year to supplement the revenue from sales.

Individual and foundation funding is increasingly necessary to maintain the series' goals: to keep the price of the books affordable, to aid small public libraries and high schools with their purchase of the volumes, to keep the growing list of titles in print, and to publish worthy yet lesser-known works. Contributions in any amount are tax-deductible and very much appreciated. Donors making an annual contribution receive announcements about forthcoming volumes and events, catalogs, as well as other communications.

The only trouble with American literature is that so much of it is so hard to find. That is the philosophy underlying one of the boldest and biggest publishing ventures of recent years." — Parade

The Library of America was founded in 1979 to undertake a historic endeavor: to help preserve the nation's cultural heritage by publishing America's best and most significant writing in durable and authoritative editions. The idea for The Library of America was first discussed among scholars and literary critics who were concerned that many works by America's finest writers were either out of print or nearly impossible to find. Without a deliberate publishing effort to preserve American writing, many important works would virtually disappear and be lost to future generations. Deprived of an important part of their cultural inheritance, Americans would lose a collective sense of the country's literary accomplishments. The Pléiade series published in France provided a model, and discussion of a similar American series continued until the late 1970s, when seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation was secured to create The Library of America. The first volumes wereLike the historic preservation movement, which originated in the 1920s with concerns about architectural heritage, The Library of America seeks to restore and pass on to future generations our nation's literary heritage. This entails something never attempted before: not only publishing these volumes but keeping them permanently in print and widely available to readers.In the years since The Library of America's inception it has come to be recognized by both scholars and the general public as the national edition of our country's literature. The series has won the National Book Critics Circle special award for "distinguished contributions to the enhancement of American literary and critical standards." It has also received the "Ambassador of Honor" title from the English-Speaking Union and the Carey- Thomas Award for Creative Publishing.

The Library of America welcomes correspondence with readers, subscribers, the press, and users of this website. In order for your inquiries to be handled expeditiously, please select an appropriate category from the list at top. For general inquiries that do not fall under any of the categories at top, please e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it