Perfect for the smaller library, this collection of books and pamphlets opens with a Christopher Columbus letter of 1493 and Martin Waldseemuller's Cosmographie introductio.

The pages of the past are opened to students of American literature, history, and culture through this documentation of pre-1900 Americana, which also includes:

• Richard Hakluyt's famous Divers Voyages and other narratives of travel and exploration
• writings by Increase and Cotton Mather
• sermons and religious treatises
• descriptions and histories of the early colonies
• accounts of Indians and Indian captives
• pamphlets on witchcraft and colonial government

Eighteenth-century selections offer a literary dimension through the poems of John Adams and letters by Jonathan Dickinson, and post-Revolutionary writers such as David Humphreys, John Hope, and Noah Webster. A political overview is added in various tracts on slavery and unfair taxation. The 250 titles in this collection are indexed by author, title, and subject in American Culture Series, 1493-1875, A Cumulative Guide, edited by Ophelia Lo.

VOLUME EQUIVALENT: 272 volumes