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。

《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。

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