Providing the most thorough coverage available in one volume, this comprehensive, broadly based collection offers a wide variety of selections in four major genres, and also includes a section on film. Each of the five sections contains a detailed critical introduction to each form, brief biographies of the authors, and a clear, concise editorial apparatus. Updated and revised throughout, the new Fourth Edition adds essays by Margaret Mead, Russell Baker, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Alice Walker; fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anton Chekov, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Louise Erdrich, Donald Barthelme, and James McPherson; poems by John Donne, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Philip Levine, and Louise Gluck; and plays by August Wilson, Marsha Norman, Wendy Wasserstein, and Vaclav Havel. The chapter devoted to film examines the relation of film to literature and gives the complete screenplay for Citizen Kane plus close analysis of a scene from the film. With its innovative structure, comprehensive coverage, and insightful and stimulating presentation of all kinds of literature, this is an anthology readers will turn to again and again. "This text assembles, as in earlier editions, 'the best that has been thought and said in the world' of representative works for introducing young, college initiates into the genres older ones of us have come to breathe and love. I am still happy with what it does for my students: it starts their hearts to palpitate."--L.P. Sego, Indiana State University"I like the inclusion of essays as a literary form in addition to the usual selection of plays, poems and short fiction."--Ruth Oleson, Huron University"An extremely well put together collection--very useful for an intro course."--David L. Frey, Medaille College"A representative reader which is unencumbered with text book apparatus and suitable for a variety of classes ranging from composition to literature for majors."--Beverly Schneller, Millersville University of Pennsylvania"An excellent selection of stories and novellas and outlines a critical vocabulary for students to use in their discussions. I like it and so do my students."--Aliki Barnstone, Marquette University"Robert Scholes's text is clearly better than those that cross my desk. The introductory comments are lucid and touch on historically key concepts of critical understanding in form--a necessity for their introductory course. Then the demonstrations of analysis provide my students with models for their own analysis. Excellent selections--Boccaccio to Borges, Sophocles to Welles! Typeface is beautiful!"--Royce Wicks, Sierra Heights College"An exceptional text in every way. The correspondence between the essay, film, and other standardized genres is noteworthy. Should become an industry standard based on the critical approaches alone."--Robert R. Hill, Seminole Junior College"What I like about this text is its comprehensiveness."--H. Bogdan, St. John's University"I love this anthology!"--Brenda Serotte, Lehman College"Appropriate for the senior seminar review of literature....A fine work."--Louie W. Attebery, The College of Idaho"Excellent collection which recognizes the contradiction we endorse by separating expository essays from so-called 'belles-lettres.'"--Jack Balcer, Shenandoah University"Most useful and intelligent."--E.N. Feltskog, University of Wisconsin"Very thorough and interesting....Excellent."--B.S. Taylor, NYCandC"A fascinating book."--Kathryn C. Joyce, Santa Barbara City College"Very thorough and interesting....Excellent."--B.S. Taylor,"A very different presentation of the theory of the literary forms here."--Marjorie Francoeur, Rivier College"Formidable--An excellent introduction to literature textbook."--Patrick J. Morrissey, Dowling College"An excellent introduction with a wide variety of materials."--Charles Bassett, Colby College"Excellent selection--particularly good on film."--N. Schaumburger, Manhattanville College"A very interesting anthology, and coherent as well."--E.N. Feltskog, University of Wisconsin"EXCELLENT!! A considerable improvement on the text I'm using now. Thank You!--C. Moylan, NYI Tech Robert Scholes, Research Professor of Modern Culture and Media; Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative Literature, and Modern Culture and Media; and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Brown University. Carl H. Klaus, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Iowa. Nancy R. Comley, Chair and Professor of English, Queens College.