The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York (Cambridge University Press/May 11, 2010), edited by New York University English Professors Cyrus R.K. Patell and Bryan Waterman, is the first large-scale consideration of New York City’s legacy in American literature. The work explores and celebrates writers in the city and portrayals of New York across more than two centuries of writing and performance, ranging from the invention of Knickerbocker New York in the 19th century to poetry and punk rock in the East Village in the 1970s.

Patell and Waterman chronicle the fluid literary understanding of New York, with selections that feature the voices of Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, Eugene O’Neill, Allen Ginsberg, and many others. Each of the volume’s contributors, who include Patell and Waterman, serves as tour guide, navigating the temporal and geographic exploration of the urban landscape while pointing out local knowledge and distinctive landmarks of each subject. 

Other contributors to the Companion include: Robert Lawson-Peebles, Elizabeth L. Bradley, Thomas Augst, Lytle Shaw, Caleb Crain, Martha Nadell, Sarah Wilson, Eric Homberger, Melissa Bradshaw, Thulani Davis, Trysh Travis, Daniel Kane, and Robin Bernstein.

Patell is an associate professor of English at NYU and the author of Negative Liberties: Morrison, Pynchon, and the Problem of Liberal Ideology (2001) and the forthcoming U.S. Multicultural Literatures: An Introduction to Emergent Writing after 1940.  Waterman is an associate professor of English and American Literature at NYU.  The author of Republic of Intellect: The Friendly Club of New York City and the Making of American Literature (2007) and a contributor to the forthcoming Cambridge History of the American Novel.

To arrange for a review copy of The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York or to schedule an interview with select contributors, please contact Caitlin Graf, Cambridge University Press, at 212.337.6569 or cgraf@cambridge.org.