1674 Sewall begins his diary
Samuel Sewall begins a diary of daily life in Boston, Massachusetts, that will span a period of more than fifty years

1700 The Selling of Joseph
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract

1722 Benjamin Franklin's 'Dogood Papers'
16-year-old Benjamin Franklin contributes the 'Dogood Papers', essays on moral topics, to a Boston journal, The New England Courant

1776 Paine argues for Common Sense
In Common Sense, an anonymous pamphlet, English immigrant Thomas Paine is the first to argue that the American colonies should be independent

1778 The Battle of the Kegs
Francis Hopkinson's popular ballad The Battle of the Kegs describes an ingenious American threat to the British navy

1781 The British Prison Ship
US poet Philip Freneau describes in The British Prison Ship the horrors of his experiences as a prisoner

1783 Webster's Spelling Book
US lexicographer Noah Webster publishes a Spelling Book for American children that eventually will sell more than 60 million copies

1786 Philip Freneau's Poems
US author Philip Freneau publishes his first collection of poems, dating back to 1771

1789 Olaudah Equiano
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic

1789 Dunlap's The Father
US painter and author William Dunlap has great success with his comedy The Father; or, American Shandyism

1796 The Hasty Pudding
US author Joel Barlow publishes his mock-heroic poem The Hasty Pudding, inspired by a dish eaten in 1793 in France

1798 Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland
US author Charles Brockden Brown publishes Wieland, the first of four novels setting Gothic romance in an American context

1800 Library of Congress
The Library of Congress, the US national library in all but name, is founded in Washington

1809 Irving hides behind Knickerbocker
Washington Irving uses the fictional Dutch scholar Diedrich Knickerbocker as the supposed author of his comic History of New York

1814 The Star-Spangled Banner
US lawyer Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner after seeing the British bombard Fort McHenry

1817 Bryant's Thanatopsis
US poet William Cullen Bryant publishes Thanatopsis, written seven years previously at the age of 16

1820 Rip Van Winkle wakes up
Washington Irving tells the story of the long sleep of Rip Van Winkle in his Sketch Book

1820 Longfellow's first published poem
7-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a poem published in a newspaper in his home town of Portland, Maine

1821 Fenimore Cooper's The Spy
The Spy, a romance set in the American Revolution, establishes the reputation of US author James Fenimore Cooper

1821 Cherokee language written down
The spoken language of the Cherokee Indians is captured in written form – an achievement traditionally attributed to Sequoyah

1823 First of the Leather-Stocking Tales
James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers introduces Natty Bumppo, frontiersman known for his 'leather stockings'

1823 A Visit from St Nicholas
An American poem, A Visit from St Nicholas, describes in every detail the modern Santa Claus

1826 The Last of the Mohicans
In James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, Natty Bumppo sides with a Mohican chief

1828 Webster's Dictionary
Connecticut lexicographer Noah Webster publishes the definitive 2-volume scholarly edition of his American Dictionary of the English Language

1829 Poe's Al Aaraaf
20-year-old Edgar Allan Poe publishes Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems

1830 Old Ironsides saved by a poem
Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem 'Old Ironsides' prompts a public response that saves the frigate from the scrapyard

1831 America is sung at Fourth of July meeting
Samuel Francis Smith's patriotic hymn America is sung for the first time on July 4 in Boston

1831 The Last Leaf
Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem The Last Leaf is inspired by an aged survivor of the Boston Tea Party

1834 Guy Rivers
American novelist William Gilmore Simms publishes Guy Rivers, the first of his series known as the Border Romances

1835 The Partisan
The Partisan, set in South Carolina, launches the series of novels by William Gilmore Simms known as the Revolutionary Romances

1836 Emerson defines Transcendentalism
In his essay, Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson sets out the fundamentals of the philolosphy of Transcendentalism

1837 The American Scholar
In The American Scholar Ralph Waldo Emerson urges his student audience to heed their own intellectuals rather than those of Europe

1838 Emerson challenges conventional Christianity
In his Divinity School Address, delivered at Harvard, Ralph Waldo Emerson criticizes formal religion and gives priority to personal spiritual experience

1838 Hawthorne's Fanshawe
US author Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes Fanshawe, his first novel, at his own expense

1839 Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe publishes a characteristically gothic tale, The Fall of the House of Usher

1840 Transcendental Club publishes The Dial
The first issue of the quarterly magazine The Dial is issued by the Transcendentalists meeting at Ralph Waldo Emerson's home

1840 Two Years Before the Mast
US lawyer Richard Henry Dana has immediate popular success with Two Years Before the Mast, his account of his time as a merchant seaman

1841 Melville goes whaling
Herman Melville goes to sea on the whaler Acushnet and spends moe than a year in the south Pacific

1841 Poe invents the detective story
August Dupin solves the case in Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered to be the first example of a detective story

1841 Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems includes 'The Village Blacksmith' and 'The Wreck of the Hesperus'

1841 Beecher's Treatise on Domestic Economy
US social reformer Catherine Beecher publishes an influential book to empower women, Treatise on Domestic Economy

1843 The Pit and the Pendulum
Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Pit and the Pendulum, a cliff-hanging tale of terror at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition

1843 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico
William Hickling Prescott brings the Conquistadors dramatically to life in his 3-volume History of the Conquest of Mexico

1845 Poe's 'The Raven'
Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems

1845 Thoreau builds himself a hut
Henry David Thoreau moves into a hut that he has built for himself in the woods at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts

1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Escaped slave Frederick Douglass publishes the first of three volumes of autobiograrphy

1845 Woman in the Nineteenth Century
US author Margaret Fuller publishes Woman in the Nineteenth Century, an early and thoughtful feminist study of women's place in society

1846 Parkman goes west
Francis Parkman travels west into dangerous territory in Wyoming, an adventure he later describes in The Oregon Trail

1847 Emerson's Poems
Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his first collection of poems, many of which have appeared first in The Dial

1847 Prescott's Conquest of Peru
William Hickling Prescott follows his great work on Mexico with a 2-volume History of the Conquest of Peru

1849 The Oregon Trail
Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail, already serialized in 1847, is published in book form

1850 The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes his novel The Scarlet Letter, in which Hester Prynne is forced to wear the letter A for Adultress

1851 House of the Seven Gables
US author Nathaniel Hawthorne bases his novel The House of the Seven Gables on a curse invoked against his own family

1851 Moby Dick
Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick; or, The Whale, a novel based on his own 18-month experience on a whaler in 1841-2

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes a massively successful antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that sells 300,000 copies in its first year

1854 Thoreau's Walden
Thoreau publishes an account of his two years of self-sufficient transcendentalism in his hut at Walden Pond

1855 First edition of Leaves of Grass
The first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published anonymously, at his own expense, and contains just 12 poems

1855 The Song of Hiawatha
Longfellow publishes his American Indian epic, The Song of Hiawatha, in an irresistibly catchy metre

1858 Holmes at the breakfast table
Oliver Wendell Holmes' book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is the first in a breakfast-table series

1858 The Courtship of Miles Standish
Longfellow uses a romantic story of early New England for his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish

1861 Paul Revere's Ride
Longfellow's narrative poem Paul Revere's Ride dramatizes a turning point at the start of the American Revolution

1862 Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe publishes The Battle Hymn of the Republic, inspired by a visit to Union troops in the American Civil War

1862 Prolific year for Emily Dickinson
Unpublished American poet Emily Dickinson writes more than 300 poems within the year

1863 Clemens is Mark Twain
Samuel Clemens uses the pseudonym Mark Twain for the first time on an article in Virginia City's Territorial Enterprise

1865 Jumping Frog brings fame to Mark Twain
Samuel Clemens, writing under the pseudonym Mark Twain, has immediate success with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

1866 Whitman's O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman laments the assassinated President Lincoln in his poem 'O Captain! My Captain!', published in Sequel to Drum-Taps

1867 First collection of 'Negro Spirituals'
The first collection of 'Negro Spirituals' is published in book form in the US as Slave Songs of the United States

1868 Little Women
US author Louisa May Alcott begins serial publication of her book for children, Little Women (in book form 1869)

1870 The Heathen Chinee
Bret Harte's comic ballad Plain Language from Truthful James acquires a popular alternative title, The Heathen Chinee

1872 Pragmatism in Metaphysical Club
Pragmatism emerges as a philosophical approach in meetings of the Metaphysical Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts

1873 The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age, by Charles Dudley Warner and Mark Twain, provides the familiar name for life in the US towards the end of the nineteenth century

1876 Centennial Leaves of Grass
In 21 years Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass has grown from 12 poems to the two volumes of the sixth edition, published in the USA's centenary year

1876 Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in which Tom and his friends find excitement in a small town on the Mississippi

1879 Uncle Remus puts in an appearance
US author Joel Chandler Harris introduces Uncle Remus in a story in the Constitution

1880 Ben-Hur
US author Lew Wallace publishes a historical novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

1881 Washington Square
In Washington Square Henry James tells the sad story of heiress Catherine Sloper

1881 Uncle Remus has a book of his own
Joel Chandler Harris publishes Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the first of many Uncle Remus volumes

1881 Portrait of a Lady
Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady studies an American girl, Isabel Archer, in the unfamiliar context of Europe

1883 Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain's autobiographical book Life on the Mississippi details his own personal involvement with the great river

1884 Huckleberry Finn
Huck Finn and his friend Tom Sawyer continue their exploits on the Mississippi in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1885 Rise of Silas Lapham
In his novel The Rise of Silas Lapham US author William Dean Howells follows the fortunes of a self-made man in Boston

1886 Little Lord Fauntleroy
US author Frances Hodgson Burnett publishes Little Lord Fauntleroy, featuring an aristocratic child in a velvet suit

1890 Emily Dickinson published posthumously
Poems is the first of six collections of Emily Dickinson's poetry, found among her papers on her death and published posthumously

1891 Billy Budd in manuscript on Melville's death
Herman Melville dies in obscurity in New York, with an unpublished manuscript of Billy Budd (not printed till 1924)

1892 Whitman's final Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass, still growing, is published in its ninth edition in the year of Walt Whitman's death

1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
US author Stephen Crane cannot find a publisher for his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, so issues it privately

1895 The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane succeeds handsomely with his second novel, The Red Badge of Courage, set in the American Civil War

1896 Tilbury Town makes its first appearance
The prolific US poet Edwin Arlington Robinson publishes The Torrent and the Night Before, his first poems about the fictional Tilbury Town

1897 What Maisie Knew
Henry James views the feckless adults in Maisie's life through the eyes of the child herself in What Maisie Knew

1898 Women and Economics
Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes Women and Economics, developing the feminist theme in US cultural and political life

1899 Theory of the Leisure Class
US social scientist Thorstein Veblen publishes The Theory of the Leisure Class, an attack on capitalist exploitation and 'consumerism'

1900 The Wizard of Oz
Frank Baum introduces children to Oz, in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

1900 Stephen Crane dies young
After a prodigiously productive career as novelist and journalist, Stephen Crane dies of tuberculosis at the age of 28

1900 Sailing Alone Around the World
Joshua Slocum publishes Sailing Alone Around the World, an account of his famous 1895-8 circumnavigation

1900 The Son of the Wolf
Jack London's first collection of stories, The Son of the Wolf, brings him a wide readership

1900 Sister Carrie fails at first
Theodore Dreiser's first novel, Sister Carrie, receives no publicity because his publisher, Frank Doubleday, considers it immoral

1900 Ellen Glasgow's Voice of the People
The Voice of the People is the first of Ellen Glasgow's novels set in her native state, Virginia

1901 Frank Norris's The Octopus
Frank Norris publishes The Octopus, the first of a projected trilogy of novels set in Southern California

1902 Wharton's Valley of Decision
Edith Wharton's publishes her first full-length novel, The Valley of Decision

1902 William James analyses religious experience
US philosopher William James publishes his influential book The Varieties of Religious Experience

1902 Helen Keller tells her story
Helen Keller's The Story of My Life begins publication in serial form

1903 The Call of the Wild
US author Jack London publishes a novel, The Call of the Wild, in which a huge pet dog has alarming adventures

1903 The Souls of Black Folk
US author W.E.B. Du Bois publishes his first collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk

1903 Frank Norris's The Pit
The Pit, the second volume of an uncompleted trilogy by US novelist Frank Norris, is published posthumously

1904 Helen Keller graduates
Helen Keller overcomes deafness and blindness to graduate cum laude at Radcliffe College in the USA

1905 The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton publishes the novel that brings her fame and fortune, The House of Mirth

1905 Santayana's Life of Reason
US philosopher George Santayana publishes the first of the five volumes of his Life of Reason

1905 The Clansman
Thomas Dixon's popular novel The Clansman presents the Ku Klux Klan in heroic terms

1906 Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a hard-hitting novel about the Chicago meat-packing industry

1907 William James advocates pragmatism
US philosopher William James publishes Pragmatism: a New Name for Old Ways of Thinking

1908 Jack London's Iron Heel
Jack London's novel Iron Heel foresees a future repressive capitalist regime in the USA

1908 Pound's A Lume Spento
Ezra Pound's first book of poems, A Lume Spento, is published in Italy

1908 Anne of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery's first novel, Anne of Green Gables, brings her instant fame and fortune

1909 Jack London's Martin Eden
Jack London publishes his most autobiographical novel, Martin Eden

1911 The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett publishes The Secret Garden, which becomes a classic of children's literature

1912 Millay's Renascence
Renascence is the title poem in college student Edna St Vincent Millay's first published collection

1913 O Pioneers
In O Pioneers Willa Cather finds her major theme, life on the frontier

1913 Pollyanna
In Pollyanna Eleanor Porter introduces an immensely successful character, the irrepressibly optimistic orphan Pollyanna Whittier

1913 Robert Frost's first book
US poet Robert Frost publishes his first book of poems, A Boy's Will

1913 Wharton's The Custom of the Country
Edith Wharton's novel The Custom of the Country begins publication in serial form

1914 Tarzan of the Apes
Tarzan makes his first appearance in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel Tarzan of the Apes

1914 The New Republic
The first issue of the weekly journal The New Republic is published in the USA

1914 Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall'
The poem 'Mending Wall' features in Robert Frost's collection North of Boston

1914 The Little Review
Margaret Anderson publishes in Chicago the first issue of The Little Review, a monthly literary magazine

1914 Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
The American writer Amy Lowell publishes an Imagist collection of poems, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

1914 Sandburg's 'Chicago'
The Swedish-American poet Carl Sandburg makes his name with 'Chicago', published in the magazine Poetry

1915 Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters makes his name as a poet with the publication of Spoon River Anthology

1916 Robert Frost's 'Birches'
'Earth's the right place for love' in Robert Frost's 'Birches', included in his collection Mountain Interval

1916 H.D.'s Sea Garden
The Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) publishes her first collection, Sea Garden

1917 Pulitzer Prizes
The first annual prizes are awarded, under the terms of Joseph Pulitzer's will, for the best new US novel, play, history and biography

1918 Willa Cather's My Antonia
In My Antonia Willa Cather's heroine survives setbacks on the Nebraska frontier

1919 Quia Pauper Amavi
Quia Pauper Amavi contains the first three of Ezra Pound's eventually more than 100 cantos

1919 Mencken's American Language
H.L. Mencken's The American Language traces the gradual evolution of American from English

1919 Winesburg, Ohio
Sherwood Anderson establishes a reputation with a collection of short stories, Winesburg, Ohio

1920 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
Ezra Pound publishes Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, a poem that reflects on the practice of poetry itself

1920 Wharton's Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton publishes her best-known novel, The Age of Innocence

1920 This Side of Paradise
The publication of Scott FitzGerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, brings him instant success

1920 Sinclair Lewis's Main Street
The American novelist Sinclair Lewis has his first major success with Main Street, an unflattering portrayal of American village life

1921 Marianne Moore's Poems
Marianne Moore calls her first published collection simply Poems

1921 Anna Christie
Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie is performed in New York

1922 Mumford's Story of Utopias
The US architectural critic Lewis Mumford publishes The Story of Utopias, the first of his many influential works

1922 Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis creates an archetypal character in George Folanshee Babbitt, a real-estate broker in the midwestern town of Zenith

1923 Wallace Stevens' Harmonium
Wallace Stevens' first collection, Harmonium, sells 100 copies

1923 Frost's New Hampshire
Robert Frost publishes a new collection of poems, New Hampshire

1923 e.e. cummings first collection
The US poet e.e. cummings publishes his first collection, Tulips and Chimneys

1923 Millay's The Harp-Weaver
US poet Edna St Vincent Millay publishes The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

1923 Elmer Rice's Adding Machine
US dramatist Elmer Rice establishes his reputation with The Adding Machine, an expressionistic drama about the machine age

1924 Tamar and Other Poems
US poet Robinson Jeffers publishes his first successful collection, Tamar and Other Poems

1924 The Man Who Died Twice
US poet E.A. Robinson publishes a narrative poem, The Man Who Died Twice, about the dissipation of artistic talent

1925 The New Yorker
Harold Ross founds The New Yorker as a humorous weekly, and remains in charge of it until his death in 1951

1925 The Great Gatsby
Scott FitzGerald publishes his novel The Great Gatsby, set in a contemporary world of lavish indulgence underpinned by crime

1925 Porgy is published
DuBose Heyward publishes his first novel, Porgy, set in Charleston's Catfish Row

1925 Algonquin Round Table
A round table at the Algonquin Hotel in New York becomes famous for its collection of wits

1926 Faulkner's Soldiers Pay
Soldiers Pay is the first published novel of the Mississippi author William Faulkner

1926 Dorothy Parker's Enough Rope
Dorothy Parker has a best-seller with her first collection of verse, Enough Rope

1926 The Sun also Rises
US author Ernest Hemingway succeeds with his second novel, The Sun also Rises (also known as Fiesta)

1927 The Bridge of San Luis Rey
US author Thornton Wilder achieves world-wide success with his second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

1927 Porgy and Bess as a play
DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy, dramatized with a new title by himself and his wife Dorothy, has a great success on Broadway and in London

1927 Frank Harris reveals all
Irish author Frank Harris publishes the fourth and final volume of My Life and Loves

1927 archy and mehitabel
Don Marquis publishes archy and mehitabel, the first collection of his sketches about archy the cockroach and mehitabel the alley cat

1928 Benét publishes John Brown's Body
Stephen V. Benét publishes a verse narrative of the Civil War under the title John Brown's Body

1928 The Front Page
The Front Page, by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, has its premiere on Broadway

1928 Coming of Age in Samoa
US anthropologist Margaret Mead makes much of trouble-free sex among natives, in Coming of Age in Samoa, but her findings are subsequently disputed

1929 Sartoris in Yoknapatawpha County
Sartoris is the first of 14 novels by William Faulkner set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County

1929 A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway publishes A Farewell to Arms, closely reflecting his own wartime experiences

1929 Look Homeward, Angel
US author Thomas Wolfe publishes an autobiographical first novel, Look Homeward, Angel

1930 Green Pastures
US author Marc Connelly's play Green Pastures has its premiere on Broadway

1930 Sam Spade's first case
US crime-writer Dashiell Hammett publishes The Maltese Falcon, the novel in which he introduces his sardonic private eye, Sam Spade

1930 As I Lay Dying
In his novel As I Lay Dying William Faulkner follows the journey of a coffin in a mule-drawn wagon

1930 The 42nd Parallel
US author John Dos Passos publishes the first novel of his trilogy The 42nd Parallel

1931 Axel's Castle
US critic Edmund Wilson publishes Axel's Castle, a collection of essays about writers in the symbolist tradition

1931 Ogden Nash's first volume
The US poet Ogden Nash has an immediate success with his first volume of poems, Hard Lines

1931 Mourning becomes Electra
The trilogy Mourning becomes Electra, Eugene O'Neill's transposition to New England of the Oresteia story, is performed in New York

1932 Death in the Afternoon
Ernest Hemingway, an aficionado of the sport, publishes Death in the Afternoon, a non-fiction account of bullfighting in Spain

1932 Tobacco Road
US novelist Erskine Caldwell publishes Tobacco Road, about white sharecroppers coping with poverty and desperation in Georgia

1932 Young Lonigan
Young Lonigan: a Boyhood in Chicago Streets is the first novel in James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy

1932 Guys and Dolls
US author Damon Runyon publishes his first collection of stories about low-life New York, under the title Guys and Dolls

1933 My Life and Hard Times
In My Life and Hard Times James Thurber's publishes an affectionate account of his family, including the night the bed fell on his father

1933 God's Little Acre
Erskine Caldwell publishes a novel, God's Little Acre, about a farmer obsessed with finding gold on his farm

1934 Tender Is the Night
US author Scott FitzGerald publishes his novel Tender Is the Night

1934 The Children's Hour
In Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour two teachers are maliciously accused of lesbianism by one of their pupils

1935 Tortilla Flat
Tortilla Flat brings success for the US novelist John Steinbeck

1936 Gone with the Wind
US author Margaret Mitchell publishes her one book, which becomes probably the best-selling novel of all time – Gone with the Wind

1936 Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner's novel Absalom, Absalom! chronicles the violently destructive rise and fall of a poor Southern white, Thomas Sutpen

1936 Nin's House of Incest
French-born US author Anaïs Nin publishes her first novel, The House of Incest

1937 Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck publishes Of Mice and Men, a novel about two itinerant farm labourers in California

1938 Our Town
Thornton Wilder's play Our Town opens on Broadway

1938 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
Delmore Schwartz publishes his first book of poems, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

1939 Secret Life of Walter Mitty
James Thurber publishes his short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

1939 The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad family, sharecroppers who are forced to move west to escape the horrors of the Dust Bowl

1939 Philip Marlowe's first appearance
US crime-writer Raymond Chandler publishes his first novel, The Big Sleep, introducing the hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe

1940 Thomas Mann becomes a US citizen
German novelist Thomas Mann takes US citizenship and in 1941 moves to California

1940 Richard Wright's Native Son
US author Richard Wright publishes Native Son, his semi-autobiographical novel about racial equality

1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway publishes the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, set in the Spanish Civil War

1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
US author Carson McCullers publishes her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

1940 To the Finland Station
In To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson discusses the development of socialism and revolution, culminating in Lenin and Trotsky

1941 The Last Tycoon
Scott FitzGerald's final and incomplete novel, The Last Tycoon, is published posthumously

1941 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Agee and Evans give a warm personal view of America in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

1941 Eudora Welty's A Curtain of Green
US author Eudora Welty publishes her first collection of stories, A Curtain of Green

1942 Blood for a Stranger
US poet Randall Jarrell publishes his first collection, Blood for a Stranger

1942 The Skin of our Teeth
Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of our Teeth has a mixed reception at its New Haven premiere

1944 Dangling Man
Saul Bellow publishes his first novel, Dangling Man, a study of an intellectual adrift as he waits to be drafted into the army

1944 Robert Lowell's first collection
Boston writer Robert Lowell publishes his first book of poems, Land of Unlikeness

1945 The Glass Menagerie
US dramatist Tennessee Williams has his first success with The Glass Menagerie

1945 Nabokov naturalized in USA
Russian-born novelist Vladimir Nabokov becomes a US citizen

1945 Richard Wright's Black Boy
Richard Wright publishes Black Boy, an account of his early life in Mississippi and then Chicago

1946 Delta Wedding
Eudora Welty sets her novel Delta Wedding in a contemporary southern plantation

1946 The Iceman Cometh
Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, set in a down-and-out bar of the kind he had known in his youth, is performed in New York

1946 Lord Weary's Castle
Robert Lowell's second collection, Lord Weary's Castle, contains 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket' and 'Mr Edwards and the Spider'

1946 Ezra Pound 'criminally insane'
Ezra Pound, charged with treason for his wartime broadcasts, begins twelve years in a US hospital for the criminally insane

1946 Elizabeth Bishop's North and South
US poet Elizabeth Bishop publishes her first collection of poems, North and South

1947 Streetcar Named Desire
Marlon Brando stars on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar named Desire

1948 The Naked and the Dead
Norman Mailer has immediate succes with his first novel, The Naked and the Dead, based on his military service in the Pacific

1948 Roethke's The Lost Son
US poet Theodore Roethke publishes The Lost Son, his second collection

1948 Beat Generation
US novelist and poet Jack Kerouac coins a term for his contemporaries, the Beat Generation

1949 Annie Allen
Annie Allen, by US author Gwendolyn Brooks, describes in narrative verse the life of a black girl in contemporary USA

1949 Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman, by US playwright Arthur Miller, has its first performance in New York

1950 The Lonely Crowd
US sociologist David Riesman analyzes the American character in The Lonely Crowd

1951 Catcher in the Rye
Catcher in the Rye is US author J.D. Salinger's immensely successful first novel

1951 The Ballad of the Sad Café
US novelist Carson McCullers publishes a collection of stories, The Ballad of the Sad Café

1952 Invisible Man
US author Ralph Ellison publishes his first novel, Invisible Man, a Kafkaesque account of a black immigrant's life in New York

1952 The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway publishes The Old Man and the Sea, about an epic struggle between an aged Cuban fisherman and a gigantic marlin

1952 East of Eden
In his novel East of Eden John Steinbeck develops the biblical theme of Cain and Abel in a family saga set in California

1952 Norman Vincent Peale thinks positively
US clergyman Norman Vincent Peale has a best-seller in The Power of Positive Thinking

1953 The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow publishes The Adventures of Augie March, a novel about the experiences of a young Chicago Jew

1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
US author James Baldwin publishes his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, set in Harlem

1953 The Crucible
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible uses the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for the contemporary paranoia of McCarthyism

1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway

1955 A View from the Bridge
Arthur Miller's play A View from the Bridge is performed in New York

1956 Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill's searing account of tensions within his own family, Long Day's Journey into Night, has its premiere in Stockholm

1956 Ginsberg's Howl
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is prosecuted and acquitted for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl

1957 The Wapshot Chronicle
US novelist John Cheever publishes The Wapshot Chronicle, depicting a wealthy and eccentric family in Massachusetts

1957 Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
US novelist Mary McCarthy describes the religious pressures she grew up with in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

1957 On the Road
Jack Kerouac publishes a largely autobiographical novel, On the Road, describing his experiences travelling through the US and Mexico

1957 Chomsky on syntax
In Syntactic Structures Noam Chomsky proposes the revolutionary theory that humans inherit an innate universal grammar

1958 The Affluent Society
In The Affluent Society US economist John Kenneth Galbraith criticizes wasteful modern consumerism

1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's
Truman Capote publishes a short novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, with a bewitching central character, Holly Golightly

1959 Henderson the Rain King
Saul Bellow publishes Henderson the Rain King, in which an American millionaire acquires a strange role in an African tribe

1959 Naked Lunch
US author William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, an account of the horrors of a junkie's life, is published in Paris

1959 Goodbye, Columbus
Philip Roth publishes his first book, Goodbye, Columbus, a novella and five short stories

1960 Plath's Colossus
The Colossus is US author Sylvia Plath's first collection of poems

1960 Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail
Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail is the first of many collections of poems by US poet Charles Bukowski

1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
US author Harper Lee publishes her first and only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird

1960 The Sot-Weed Factor
US novelist John Barth publishes The Sot-Weed Factor, a picaresque life of Edmund Cook set on a family tobacco plantation in Maryland

1960 Rabbit, Run
US author John Updike begins to chart the fictional progress of Harry Angstrom, known as Rabbit, in Rabbit, Run

1961 Death and Life of Great American Cities
Political activist Jane Jacobs publishes an influential polemic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

1961 Franny and Zooey
J.D. Salinger publishes Franny and Zooey, the second of his collections of stories about the Glass family

1961 Catch-22
US author Joseph Heller publishes his first novel, Catch-22, set in the last months of World War II

1961 Hemingway commits suicide
The novelist Ernest Hemingway kills himself with a shotgun in his log cabin in Idaho

1962 Baldwin's Another Country
James Baldwin's third novel Another Country explores the conflicts in the life of a young unemployed black musician

1962 John Ashbery's The Tennis Court Oath
John Ashbery's radical collection The Tennis Court Oath includes poems composed of sliced up fragments

1962 The Reivers
The Reivers, the last of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha novels, is published just a month before his death

1962 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
US dramatist Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens on Broadway

1962 Pale Fire
In Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov tells his story through an editor's annotations to a poem

1963 The Bell Jar
US poet Sylvia Plath publishes under a pseudonym her only novel, The Bell Jar

1963 McCarthy's The Group
Mary McCarthy's novel The Group follows the subsequent adventures of eight fellow graduates from Vassar

1963 Silent Spring
US environmentist Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, an impassioned warning of ecological disaster

1963 Where the Wild Things Are
US author and illustrator Maurice Sendak publishes a fantasy for young children, Where the Wild Things Are

1963 The Feminine Mystique
In The Feminine Mystique US feminist Betty Friedan challenges the stereotypical view of woman's role

1964 77 Dream Songs
US poet John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs introduce Henry, his alter ego

1964 For the Union Dead
Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead takes its title from the last poem, about modern disregard for a Civil War monument

1964 With Shuddering Fall
US author Joyce Carol Oates publishes her first novel, With Shuddering Fall

1964 Herzog
US author Saul Bellow publishes Herzog, a novel featuring a professor of history who is a compulsive sender of messages

1965 The Odd Couple
Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple is produced in New York

1965 Jarrell's The Lost World
US author Randall Jarrell's poem The Lost World provides the title for his last published book