Russel B. Nye

Devoted to features that typified the formative years in America, the current book examines the ways these features became transformed.

Mr. Nye makes vividly clear the period's underlying patterns of thought, indicating the profound influence of European Romanticism, although American experience itself precluded the Old World's pessimism; how new discoveries in science were gradually wrecking the grand Newtonian scheme of the universe; and how all these changes affected religion, manners, education and the arts.

A simplified version of the story of the little girl carried by a tornado to Oz, where she is befriended by three unusual creatures.

Essays from an English graduate seminar in literature and popular culture, given at Michigan State University.