US Author / Writers Name
There is a great and proud tradition of American writers, including some of the world’s most famous authors. Novels, plays, and poems pour out of the United States, with increasing numbers of women,outsource companies, outsourcing, outsource, outsource definition, outsourcing definition, convergent outsourcing, software outsourcing companies, it outsourcing companies, African American, Native American, and Hispanic writers making a strong contribution. There have been twelve literature Nobel Prize laureates, beginning with Sinclair Lewis in 1930 to Bob Dylan, in 2016. Other American writers who were laureates include such household names as T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck. American writers’ contribution to English literature is incalculable
The American literary tradition began when some of the early English colonists recounted their adventures in the New World for the benefit of readers in their mother country (see our list of the best English authors). Some of those early writings were quite accomplished, such as the account of his adventures by Captain John Smith in Virginia and the journalistic histories of John Winthrop and William Bradford in New England.
American Writers: 20 Greatest American Authors Of All Time
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804 – 1864
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a novelist and short story writer. Hawthorne’s works have been labelled ‘dark romanticism,’ dominated as they are by cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humankind. His novels and stories, set in a past New England, are versions of historical fiction used as a vehicle to express themes of ancestral sin, guilt and retribution
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 –1849
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. He is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and suspense. He is generally considered the inventor of detective ficiton. Poe’s work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. In addition to his detective stories he is one of the originators of horror and science fiction. He is often credited as the architect of the modern short story…
Herman Melville 1819 – 1891
Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poems. He is best known for the novel Moby-Dick and a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, Typee. His whaling novel, Moby-Dick is often spoken of as ‘the great American novel’ ’vying with Scott Fitgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for that title…
Walt Whitman 1819-1892
Walt Whitman was a poet, essayist, and journalist who transformed poetry around the world with his disregard for traditional rhyme and meter and his celebration of democracy and sensual pleasure. His masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, a collection of poems, is widely studied by poets, students and academics, set to music, translated into numerous languages, and is widely quoted. His influence can be found everywhere – in contemporary best seller lists to feature films and musical works, both “serious” and popular
Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
Unknown as a poet during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson is now regarded by many as one of the most powerful voices of American culture. Her poetry has inspired many other writers, including the Bronte's. In 1994 the critic, Harold Bloom, listed her among the twenty-six central writers of Western civilization. After she died her sister found the almost two thousand poems the poet had written…
Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , far better known as Mark Twain, was an American writer, businessman, publisher and lecturer. He progressed from his day job as pilot of a Mississippi riverboat to legend of American literature. His work shows a deep seriousness and at the same time, it is hilariously satirical, as seen in his many quotes on all aspects of life. His masterpiece is the novel, Huckleberry Finn, which is regularly referred to as ‘the great American novel.’
Henry James 1843 – 1916
Henry James is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He is noted for writing from a character’s point of view’ which allowed him to explore consciousness and perception. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrators brought a new depth to narrative fiction, all of which were influential on the writing of the novelists who followed him. He was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature three times
T.S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-born, British, poet, essayist, playwright, critic, now regarded as one of the twentieth century’s major poets. He received more rewards than almost any other writer of the past two centuries, including the Nobel prize, the Dante Gold Medal, the Goethe prize, the US Medal of Freedom and the British Order of Merit
F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896 – 1940
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was an American novelist, widely regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, American writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel, The Great Gatsby, which vies for the title ‘Great American Novel’ with Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Fitzgerald’s place on this list is justified by the fact that his great novel is actually about America…
William Faulkner 1897 –1962
William Cuthbert Faulkner was a Nobel Prize laureate, awarded the literature prize in 1949. He wrote novels, short stories, poetry, and screenplays. He is known mainly for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha Country, Mississippi. Faulkner is one of the most celebrated American writers, regarded, generally as the great writer of the American South
Tennessee Williams 1911-1983
Thomas Lanier Williams III, known as Tennessee Williams is one of America’s most popular playwrights and now regarded as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. He wrote more than thirty plays, some of which have become classis of Western drama. He also wrote novels and short stories but is known almost exclusively for his plays. His genius was in the honesty with which he represented society and the art of presenting that in the form of absorbing drama
Arthur Miller 1915 – 2005
Arthur Miller was a playwright and ‘great man’ of American theatre, which he championed throughout his long life. His many dramas were among the most popular by American authors and several are considered to be among the best American plays, among them the classics, The Crucible, All My Sons, A View from the Bridge and, above all, the iconic American drama, Death of a Salesman. He also wrote film scripts, notably the classic, The Misfits…
Joseph Heller 1923 – 1999
Joseph Heller was an American writer of satirical novels, short stories and plays. Although he wrote several acclaimed novels, his reputation rests firmly on his masterpiece, the great American anti-war satire, Catch 22. Because of the quality of the novel and the impact it has made on American culture it has catapulted Heller into the ranks of the great American writers
Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
Ernest Hemingway was a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. More works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously
Raymond Chandler 1888 – 1959
Raymond Chandler was a British-American novelist who wrote several screenplays and short stories. He published seven novels during his lifetime. The first, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. An eighth, Poodle Springs, unfinished at his death, was completed by another great crime writer, Robert B Parker. Six of Chandler’s novels have been made into films, some more than once…
Toni Morrison 1931 – 2019
Toni Morrison’s novels are known for their vivid dialogue, their detailed characters and epic themes. Her most famous novel is the 1987 novel, Beloved. She was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993
Vladimir Nabokov 1899 – 1977
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist, and also a famous entomologist, specializing in butterflies, a topic on which he wrote several academic books. He wrote nine novels in Russian, but it was when he began writing in English that he achieved international recognition
Flannery O’Connor 1925 – 1964
Mary Flannery O’Connor wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories, and also several reviews and commentaries. Her reputation is based mainly on her short stories. She was a Southern writer and relied heavily on regional settings and typically southern characters. She was strongly Roman Catholic, which informed her exploration of ethics and morality…
John Steinbeck 1902 – 1968
John Ernst Steinbeck was the author of 16 novels and various other works, including five short story collections. He is widely known for the novels, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and particularly, the Puliter Prize winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, his masterpiece, which is one of the great American novels: it has sold more than 15 million copies so far
John Updike 1923 – 2009
John Updike was a novelist, short story writer and poet. He was also a literary and art critic. He published more than twenty novels, numerous short-story collections, eight volumes of poetry and many children’s books. He is most famous for his ‘Rabbit‘ series – novels that chronicle the life of his protagonist, Harry Angstrom – in which Updike presented his progress over the course of several decades
Kurt Vonnegut 1922 – 2007
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer who published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his novel ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ (1969) which has become an American classic. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel based on his experience as a prisoner of war who survived the allies’ bombing of Dresden.
List of American writers
This list of American writers is alphabetically ordered by period. The term writers is broadly defined to include philosophers, scientists, cookbook writers, critics, journalists, sociologists, historians, and even explorers, as well as poets and novelists. This list is limited, however, to those writers springing from the European tradition, including the work of African American writers who were schooled in the United States and others who were not by definition U.S. citizens but who wrote works of importance to American culture or American literature. It should also be noted that writers who overlap two periods are usually listed within the period that they wrote their most representative works.
- Colonial era
- William Bradford
- Anne Bradstreet
- Thomas Harriot
- Increase Mather
- Cotton Mather
- Thomas Morton
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
- William Penn
- Samuel Sewall
- John Smith
- Edward Taylor
- Nathaniel Ward
- Michael Wigglesworth
- Roger Williams
- John Winthrop
- The 18th century
- Abigail Adams
- Hannah Adams
- John Adams
- Conrad Beissel
- Charles Brockden Brown
- William Hill Brown
- William Byrd
- Jonathan Carver
- Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur
- Joseph Dennie
- John Dickinson
- Joseph Rodman Drake
- Timothy Dwight
- Jonathan Edwards
- Olaudah Equiano
- Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson
- Hannah Webster Foster
- Benjamin Franklin
- Philip Freneau
- Samuel Griswold Goodrich
- Alexander Hamilton
- Samuel Hopkins
- Thomas Jefferson
- Sarah Kemble Knight
- Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton
- Judith Sargent Stevens Murray
- Thomas Paine
- Edward Taylor
- Lucy Terry
- John Trumbull
- Royall Tyler
- Mercy Otis Warren
- Phillis Wheatley
- John Woolman
The early 19th century to the end of the American Civil War
- Jacob Abbott
- Bronson Alcott
- Delia Salter Bacon
- Robert Montgomery Bird
- Black Hawk
- Maria Gowen Brooks
- John Brougham
- William Wells Brown
- William Cullen Bryant
- Anna Ella Carroll
- Alice Cary
- Phoebe Cary
- William Ellery Channing
- Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut
- Lydia Maria Child
- Ada Clare
- James Fenimore Cooper
- Maria Susanna Cummins
- George William Curtis
- Richard Henry Dana
- Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis
- Martin R. Delany
- David Dickson
- Frederick Douglass
- Mary Henderson Eastman
- Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Margaret Fuller
- William Lloyd Garrison
- Caroline Howard Gilman
- Angelina Emily Grimké
- James Hall
- Fitz-Greene Halleck
- Frances E.W. Harper
- George Washington Harris
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- George Moses Horton
- Washington Irving
- Harriet A. Jacobs
- John P. Kennedy
- Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
- Abraham Lincoln
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Herman Melville
- Adah Isaacs Menken
- Harriet Mann Miller
- Donald Grant Mitchell
- Clement Clarke Moore
- Anna Cora Mowatt
- Mary Gove Nichols
- Solomon Northup
- Fitz-James O’Brien
- Francis Parkman
- Sara Payson Willis Parton
- James Kirke Paulding
- John Howard Payne
- Mary Hayden Green Pike
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Catharine Maria Sedgwick
- L.H. Sigourney
- William Gilmore Simms
- Seba Smith
- Ann Sophia Stephens
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Henry David Thoreau
- Henry Timrod
- Sojourner Truth
- Jones Very
- David Walker
- Mason Locke Weems
- Frances Miriam Berry Whitcher
- Sarah Helen Power Whitman
- Walt Whitman
- John Greenleaf Whittier
- David Wilson
- Harriet E. Wilson
The end of the Civil War to World War I
From World War I to the end of World War II
Post-World War II
Arthur Miller was a playwright and ‘great man’ of American theatre, which he championed throughout his long life. His many dramas were among the most popular by American authors and several are considered to be among the best American plays, among them the classics, 
