This anthology surveys the emergence of Anglo-American cultures in the first dramatic period of the European empires. It includes Francis Bacon, Adam Smith, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope as well as Wheatley and Edwards.

The English Literatures of America, 1500–1800; 1: The Globe at 1500; 1: The Expansion of Europe; 2: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; 2: Learning to Say “America” in English; 3: The English Diaspora; 4: Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: Virginia and the Indies; 5: Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: New England and Canada; 6: Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: The Trials of Puritanism; 7: Science in America: The Seventeenth Century; 8: Poetry: The Seventeenth Century; 3: The Eighteenth Century; 9: Religion in the Enlightenment; 10: Histories; 11: The Literature of Politics; 12: Science in America: The Eighteenth Century; 13: Belles Lettres; 14: Poetry: The Eighteenth Century