For the past three and a half decades the Library of America has been turning out hardcover volumes of American letters with informative introductions and commentary by distinguished scholars. The brainchild of Edmund Wilson, the Library of America was established in 1979 as a not-for-profit publishing house to celebrate our national literature by collecting the major works of American authors and by republishing classic works that have gone out of print. The directors and editors of the enterprise have been dedicated to turning Wilson’s vision into reality. Not every volume succeeds—there are some ephemeral authors in the mix and in some recent volumes one can discern a hint of political correctness in some of the editorial choices. But with nearly 300 volumes in print, the Library of America is an impressive achievement. It includes collections of the most important American novelists and poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along with the collected works of important historical figures like George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. It has also published anthologies of American poetry, the debates on the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the speeches of American presidents, and collections of journalistic writings on World War II, the war in Vietnam, and the Civil Rights movement.

The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate, 1764–1776 is the latest installment in this now long-running series and is published this year to mark the 250th anniversary of the Stamp Act crisis.1Edited by