This two-volume anthology represents America's literary heritage from colonial times through the American renaissance to the contemporary era of post-modernism.  Volume I offers early contextual selections from Christopher Columbus and Gaspar Perez de Villagra, as well as an excerpt from the Iroquois League’s Constitution of the Five Nations, and ends with an extensive selection of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. This anthology is best known for its useful pedagogy, including extensive and straightforward headnotes and introductions, as well as its balanced approach to editorial selection process.