"The Library of America in its reissue of American literary classics...has been the most satisfying (and I suspect the most lasting) publishing event of my lifetime." — Alfred Kazin

"Best of all, this series provides authoritative texts." — Time

"Amazing and quite tactful, almost invisible, erudition." — Threepenny Review

	Original Gettysburg Address Manuscript

The volumes are authoritative, accurate, unabridged, and unencumbered by critical analysis. Each includes a chronology of the author's life and work, helpful notes prepared by a distinguished scholar, and a brief essay on the text selected for each work.

A commitment to publish an authoritative text of each work sets The Library of America apart from most other publishing efforts aimed at a general audience. To determine which version of a work is authoritative, the printing and publishing history of each work is traced in an attempt to learn when it was written, what differences there were in pre-publication versions, who prepared the copy sent to the publisher, and who proofread the galleys. In addition, an examination may be made of the writer's letters commenting on the publishing process, any records of changes made in subsequent printings, publishers' archives, and so on.

Original Henry James Notes

Through this process The Library of America has made important contributions to textual scholarship and has, in fact, occasionally made American literary history. For example, textual investigation of Richard Wright's Native Son recovered many passages that had been cut or altered because of their sexual, racial, or political candor. The Library of America edition of William Faulkner's works was prepared directly from his manuscripts and typescripts. For the first time they can be read precisely as he intended. And authoritative new editions of Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Paine, and Robert Frost have made all previous editions of these writers' works obsolete.