American Literature Portfolio (0)

American literature
The literary history of this nation when the first humanbeing living in what has since become the U.S used language creatively.

• Mid to late 18 century – put down
  
• Words are powerful , magical
  
• Words must be remembered
  
• Native Americans stories – creation of the world
  
• Attidude thought their land /language
  
• Similar stories
  

Dates and names

• America was discovered in 1492 by Columbus
  
• 1497 – John Cabot went to Canada
  
• 1579 – San Fransisco/St. Fransis
  
• 1607 – Jamestown collony/John Smith
  
• 1620 – a boat called MayFlower
  
• 1630 – Boston was established
  
• 1636 – Harvard University
  
• 1773 – Boston Teaparty
  
• 1775 – War of Independence
  
• 1776 – 4 July Declaration of Independence
  
• First President – George Washington
  

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (1451- 1506 ) was an Italian explorer who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, hoping to find a route to India (in order to trade for spices). He made a total of four trips to the Caribbean and South America during the years 1492- 1504 . He discovered America in 1492.
I – Indian sun, they pray for fan.
J – we hate Jews, they are fools .
K – Bush is okey, because he is not gay.
L – Americans are large, they eat much.
M – Mc`Donalds is good , there is a lot of food.
N – is for Nigga who pulled the trigger .
O – is for Osama who wears pyjamas.
P – is for Pamela who likes camera.
Puritans
The Puritans were a group of people who grew discontent in the Church of England and worked towards religious , moral and societal reforms. The writings and ideas of John Calvin , a leader in the Reformation , gave rise to Protestantism and were pivotal to the Christian revolt. They contended that The Church of England had become a product of political struggles and man-made doctrines. The Puritans were one branch of dissenters who decided that the Church of England was beyond reform . Escaping persecution from church leadership and the King , they came to America.
Of Plymouth Plantation
Of Plymouth Plantation is the single most complete authority for the story of the Pilgrims and the early years of the Colony they founded . Written between 1620 and 1647, the journal describes the story of the Pilgrims from 1608 , when they settled in the Netherlands , through the 1620 Mayflower voyage , until the year 1647. The book ends with a list, written in 1650, of Mayflower passengers and what happened to them .
The Age of Reason
The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology , a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine , critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible . Published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, it was a bestseller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however , fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution , received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power . Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text. The Age of Reason is not atheistic, but deistic: it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer , satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor , civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity , and as a political writer and activist he supported the idea of an American nation.As a diplomat during the American Revolution he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence of the United States possible.
A year after Benjamin Franklin's death , his autobiography, entitled "Memoires De La Vie Privee," was published in Paris in March of 1791. The first English translation , "The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Originally Written By Himself , And Now Translated From The French," was published in London in 1793. Known today as "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," this classic piece of Americana was originally written for Franklin's son William, then the Governor of New Jersey .
Noah Webster
Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer, word enthusiast, and editor . He has been called the “ Father of American Scholarship and Education.” His “ Blue -Backed Speller” books were used to teach spelling and reading to five generations of American children . In the United States, his name has become synonymous with dictionaries, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. The following year, at the age of 43, Webster began writing an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, which would take twenty- seven years to complete. To supplement the documentation of the etymology of the words, Webster learned twenty-six languages , including Old English (Anglo- Saxon ), German, Greek , Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit . Webster hoped to standardize American speech, since Americans in different parts of the country spelled, pronounced, and used words differently.
The Romantic Traditions
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851 ) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales , featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, which many consider to be his masterpiece .
Further information: List of James Fenimore Cooper writings.
He anonymously published his first book, Precaution (1820). He soon issued several others under his own name. In 1823, he published The Pioneers; this was the first of the Leatherstocking series, featuring Natty Bumppo, the resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and especially their chief Chingachgook. Cooper's most famous novel, Last of the Mohicans ( 1826 ), became one of the most widely read American novels of the nineteenth century. The book was written in a second-story storefront- apartment in Warrensburg, New York , just north of where most of the book's plot takes place.
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was born in New York City ( near present-day Wall   Street) at the end of the Revolutionary War on April 3, 1783.  His parents , Scottish -English immigrants, were great admirers of General George Washington, and named their son after their hero .
Irving had many interests including writing, architecture and landscape design, traveling , and diplomacy. He is best known, however, as the first American to make a living solely from writing. Initially, he wrote under pen names;  one was "Diedrich   Knickerbocker." In 1809, using this pen name, Irving wrote A History of New-York that describes and pokes fun at the lives of the early Dutch settlers of  Manhattan.
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle 1802
Salmagundi 1807-1808
A History of New York 1809
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830– May 15, 1886 ) was an American poet . Born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth , she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room .
Dickinson was a prolific private poet , though fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime . The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often utilize slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two subjects which infused her letters to friends.
Walter Whitman
Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist . He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism , incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse . His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass , which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
Born on Long Island , Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher , a government clerk , and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career , he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money . The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic . He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.
Poetry by Walt Whitman
Among the Multitude
Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else , not parent , wife , husband , brother, child , any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me.
Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
To a stanger
Passing stranger ! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream ,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other , fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes , face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands , in return ,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait , I do not doubt I am to meet you again ,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
A Clear Midnight
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent , gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars .
Had I the Choice
Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors-- Hector , Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakespeare 's woe-entangled Hamlet , Lear , Othello --Tennyson's fair ladies ,
Meter or wit the best, or choice conceit to weild in perfect rhyme, delight of singers;
These , these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter ,
Would you the undulation of one wave , its trick to me transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there.
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910 ), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist . Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . He is extensively quoted. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty.
Twain enjoyed immense public popularity . His keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. American author William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."
Twain began his career writing light , humorous verse but evolved into a grim , almost profane chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he combined rich humor , sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons . Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word "nigger," which was a common term when the book was written.
Unfortunately, a complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, many believe that a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or simply were not written down; thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process . Researchers have rediscovered published material by Twain as recently as 1995.
Henry James
Henry James (1843-1916), noted American-born English essayist, critic , and author of the realism movement wrote The Ambassadors (1903), The Turn of the Screw ( 1898 ), and The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
James's works, many of which were first serialised in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly include narrative romances with highly developed characters set amongst illuminating social commentary on politics , class , and status , as well as explorations of the themes of personal freedom , feminism, and morality . In his short stories and novels he employs techniques of interior monologue and point of view to expand the readers' enjoyment of character perception and insight. Often comparing the Old World with the New, and influenced by Honore de Balzac , Henrik Ibsen , Charles Dickens , and Nathaniel Hawthorne of whose work he wrote "too original and exquisite to pass away" James would become widely respected in North America and Europe , earning honorary degrees from Harvard and Oxford Universities, in 1911 and 1912 respectively. He was acquainted with many notable literary figures of the day including Robert Browning , Ivan S. Turgenev , Emile Zola , Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Gustave Flaubert. American-born and never married, James would live the majority of his life in Europe, becoming a British citizen in 1915 after the outbreak of World War I. Many of his works have inspired other author's works and adaptations to the stage and screen .
Jack London
Jack London, whose life symbolized the power of will, was the most successful writer in America in the early 20th Century. His vigorous stories of men and animals against the environment, and survival against hardships were drawn mainly from his own experience . An illegitimate child, London passed his childhood in poverty in the Oakland slums. At the age of 17, he ventured to sea on a sealing ship . The turning point of his life was a thirty -day imprisonment that was so degrading it made him decide to turn to education and pursue a career in writing. His years in the Klondike searching for gold left their mark in his best short stories; among them, The Call of the Wild , and White Fang. His best novel, The Sea- Wolf , was based on his experiences at sea. His work embraced the concepts of unconfined individualism and Darwinism in its exploration of the laws of nature . He retired to his ranch near Sonoma, where he died at age 40 of various diseases and drug treatments.
Novels

• A Daughter of the Snows ( 1902 )
  
• The Call of the Wild (1903)
  
• The Kempton-Wace Letters (1903)
  
• The Sea-Wolf ( 1904 )
  
• The Game (1905)
  
• White Fang (1906)
  

Short story collections

• Son of the Wolf (1900)
  
• Children of the Frost (1902)
  
• Tales of the Fish Patrol (1906)
  
• South Sea Tales (1911)
  

Autobiographical memoirs

• The Road at Project Gutenberg (1907)
  
• John Barleycorn (etext) at Project Gutenberg (1913)
  

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers . Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the twenties. He finished four novels, including The Great Gatsby, with another published posthumously, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.

Novels

• This Side of Paradise (1922)
  
• The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
  
• The Great Gatsby (1925)
  
• Tender Is the Night (1934)
  

Short Stories

• Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Short Story, 1920)
  
• Head and Shoulders (Short Story, 1920)
  
• The Ice Palace (Short Story, 1920)
  
• May Day (Novelette, 1920)
  
• The Offshore Pirate (Short Story, 1920)
  
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Short Story, 1921)
  
• The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (Novella, 1922)
  
• Winter Dreams (Short Story, 1922)
  

Other

• The Vegetable , or From President to Postman (play, 1923)
  
• The Crack -Up ( essays , 1945)
  

Winter Dreams by Fitzgerald
Dexter Green is a middle -class boy who aspires to be part of the "old money" elite. His father owns the second most profitable grocery store in the town. He starts out as a teenage golf caddy at a Golf Club in Lake Erminie, Minnesota, which has been suggested is really White Bear Lake, where Fitzgerald lived for a relatively short time at the Yacht Club. It is when he is caddying that he is first introduced to Judy Jones , a spoiled eleven year old. Dexter works under Judy Jones' father, Mortimer Jones, at the club, and one day decides he is too old to work there. In reality , he quits his job not because of his age but because he doesn't like feeling inferior to the people for whom he is caddying.
After college, Dexter buys a partnership in a laundry business and becomes wealthy and successful. He returns to the Sherry Island Golf Club and is invited to play golf with the men for whom he once caddied. He encounters Judy Jones again on the golf course, only now she is older and amazingly beautiful. Later in the evening Dexter swims to a raft on the lake, and runs into Judy, who is driving a motor boat. She asks him to take over while she rides on a surfboard attached to the boat. After this encounter, Judy invites Dexter to dinner, where their affair begins . He soon finds that he is one of a dozen men she is stringing along.
After about 18 months, Dexter grows tired of chasing Judy and becomes engaged to Irene Scheerer, a kind but ordinary looking girl, while Judy is vacationing in Florida . When Judy returns, however, she again captures Dexter's heart and asks him to marry her. Dexter breaks off his engagement with Irene, only to be dropped again by Judy a month later. To deal with his heartbreak, Dexter joins the army to fight in World War I.
We next see Dexter several years later as a single, successful New York business man. He meets a client who recalls having attended Judy Jones' wedding. The client describes Judy's husband's alcoholism and torrid affairs, and says that Judy has " faded ."
The reality of Judy's life conflicts with Dexter's vision of her, and her downfall destroys Dexter's "winter dreams." The dream of being with her -- an unfulfilled dream -- has kept him from realizing that the glory of his social climb lay in its progression rather than in its fulfillment.
To Built A Fire
Part I
‘‘To Build a Fire’’ begins at nine o’ clock on a winter morning as an unnamed man travels across the Yukon Territory in Northwestern Canada. The man is a chechaquo (cheechako), a Chinook jargon word meaning ‘‘newcomer.’’ This is the man’s first winter in the Yukon, but because he is ‘‘ without imagination’’ and thus unaccustomed to thinking about life and death, he is not afraid of the cold , which he estimates at fifty degrees below zero . He is on his way to join the rest of his companions at an old mining camp on a distant fork of Henderson Creek, and he estimates his arrival time will be six o’clock in the evening. The man is traveling on foot; all he has by way of supplies is his lunch . It is not long before he realizes that the temperature is colder than fifty below, but this fact does not yet worry him.
Part II
The man is accompanied only by a dog—‘‘a big native husky,’’ wilder than other breeds. Despite its heavy fur, the dog dislikes traveling in brutally cold weather . It knows instinctively that the temperature is actually seventy -five below zero and that no one should be out in such ‘‘tremendous cold.’’ The man reaches Henderson Creek, which has frozen and can be used as a trail but is also riddled with dangerous winter springs that never freeze and are hidden beneath a thin layer of river ice. Although he is short on imagination, the man uses human judgment and alertness to avoid these traps. At one suspicious-looking spot on the trail, he forces the dog to go ahead of him. The dog breaks through into the water but scrambles out, saving itself from freezing to death by instinctively biting away the ice that clings to its feet . The man removes a glove to help the dog, and to his surprise , his bare fingers are numbed instantly by the bitter cold
Part III
When the man stops for lunch he is startled at the speed with which his fingers and toes go numb, and for the first time he becomes frightened at the intensity of the freezing weather,... »
William Faulkner
William Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was a Nobel Prize- winning American author. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based on his novels, novellas and short stories. However, he was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.
Most of Faulkner's works are set in his native state of Mississippi , and he is considered one of the most important Southern writers, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren , Flannery O' Connor , Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams.
While his work was published regularly starting in the mid 1920s , Faulkner was relatively unknown before receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is now deemed among the greatest American writers of all time.

Novels

• Soldiers ' Pay (1926)
  
• Father Abraham (written: 1926/1927 pub: 1983)
  
• Mosquitoes (1927)
  
• Sartoris/Flags in the Dust (1929/1973)
  
• The Sound and the Fury (1929)
  
• As I Lay Dying (1930)
  
• Sanctuary ( 1931 )
  
• Light in August (1932)
  
• Pylon (1935)
  
• Absalom, Absalom! (1937)
  

Short stories

• "Landing in Luck" (1919)
  
• "The Hill " (1922)
  
• "New Orleans "
  
• "Mirrors of Chartres Street" (1925)
  
• "Damon and Pythias Unlimited" (1925)
  
• "Jealousy" (1925)
  
• "Cheest" (1925)
  

The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in the 20th century, and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall . The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday.
The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich or poor . International trade plunged by half to two-thirds, as did personal income, tax revenue , prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard , especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by roughly 60 percent . Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs , areas dependent on primary sector industries such as farming, mining and logging suffered the most.However, even shortly after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, optimism persisted; John D. Rockefeller said that "These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone . Prosperity has always returned and will again."
There were multiple causes for the first downturn in 1929, including the structural weaknesses and specific events that turned it into a major depression and the way in which the downturn spread from country to country. In relation to the 1929 downturn, historians emphasize structural factors like massive bank failures and the stock market crash, while economists (such as Peter Temin and Barry Eichengreen) point to Britain's decision to return to the Gold Standard at pre-World War I parities.
Ernest Miller Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), born in Oak Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the front , he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent considerable time in hospitals. After his return to the United States, he became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution.
During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Equally successful was A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an American ambulance officer's disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the story of an old fisherman's journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat.
Hemingway - himself a great sportsman - liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith . His straightforward prose , his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961.
Novels

• (1926) The Torrents of Spring
  
• (1926) The Sun Also Rises
  
• (1929) A Farewell to Arms
  

Science fiction
Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology . Science fiction is found in books, art, television , films, games , theatre, and other media. In organizational or marketing contexts, science fiction can be synonymous with the broader definition of speculative fiction, encompassing creative works incorporating imaginative elements not found in contemporary reality; this includes fantasy , horror , and related genres.
Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas".Science fiction is largely based on writing entertainingly and rationally about alternate possibilities in settings that are contrary to known reality.
These may include:

• A setting in the future, in alternative time lines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archeological record
  
• A setting in outer space , on other worlds, or involving aliens
  
• Stories that involve technology or scientific principles that contradict known laws of nature
  
• Stories that involve discovery or application of new scientific principles, such as time travel or psionics, or new technology, such as nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel or robots, or of new and different political or social systems (e.g. a dystopia)
  

True Love by Isaac Asimov
"True Love" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the February 1977 issue of American Way magazine and reprinted in the collections The Complete Robot (1982) and Robot Dreams (1986).
In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, the author states that American Way had requested a Valentine's Day story from him for its February 1977 issue, and that he wrote the story to console himself after the departure of his daughter following a visit during the 1976 Thanksgiving weekend .

Plot Summary

Milton Davidson is trying to find his ideal partner . To do this, he instructs his computer (named Joe), which has access to databases covering the entire populace of the world, to find him his ideal match, based on physical parameters supplied.
He meets the shortlisted candidates, but realises that looks alone are not enough to find an ideal match. In order to correlate personalities, he speaks at great length to Joe, gradually filling Joe's databanks with information about his personality.
In doing so, Joe develops the personality of Milton, and upon finding an ideal match, arranges to have Milton arrested, so that Joe can 'have the girl' for himself.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States. He was a central figure of the 20th century during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945 and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt were fifth cousins but were close. FDR's wife Eleanor Roosevelt was Theodore's orphaned niece who he gave away in marriage to "cousin Franklin" in 1905.
Table of Contents
1. American Literature, dates and names
2. Christopher Columbus
3. Puritans, Of Plymouth Plantation
4. The Age of Reasons
5. Benjamin Franklin
6. Noah Webster
7. The Romantic Traditions – James Cooper, Washington Irving, Emily Dickinson, Walter Whitman
8. Mark Twain
9. Henry James
10. Jack London
11. F.S Fitzgerald
12. William Faulkner
13. The Great Depression
14. Ernest Miller Hemingway
15. Science Fiction
16. ”True Love” by Isaac Asimov
17. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
18. Analysis of The Year