Studies in Classic American Literature is a work of literary criticism by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It was first published by Thomas Seltzer in the United States in August 1923. The British edition was published in June 1924 by Martin Secker.
The authors discussed include Benjamin Franklin, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman.
The critic Harold Bloom listed Studies in Classic American Literature in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books that have been important and influential in Western culture. Lawrence's work is generally credited with contributing to the restoration of Herman Melville as a seminal figure in American literature.
Contents
Foreword — The spirit of place — Benjamin Franklin — Hector St. John de Crèvecœur — Fenimore Cooper's white novels — Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking novels — Edgar Allan Poe — Nathaniel Hawthorne and "The scarlet letter" — Hawthorne's "Blithedale romance" — Dana's "Two years before the mast" — Herman Melville's "Typee" and "Omoo" — Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" — Whitman.