BIOGRAPHY

Mitchell, Julia Post. St. John de Crèvecoeur. New York: Columbia U.P., 1916, 362 p.

A seminal work on the life and writings of Crèvecoeur, written before the discovery of Sketches in 1925.

Philbrick, Thomas. St. John de Crèvecoeur. New York: Twayne, 1970, 178 p.

Considered a cornerstone of the study of Crèvecoeur, this work examines the influences and motifs found in the author's limited canon.

CRITICISM

Beidler, Philip D. “Franklin's and Crèvecoeur's ‘Literary’ Americans.” Early American Literature 13, No. 1 (Spring 1978): 50-63.

Suggests that Crèvecoeur reshaped contemporary literary conventions and produced a work of fiction that anticipated the nineteenth-century novel.

Carew-Miller, Anna. “The Language of Domesticity in Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer.” Early American Literature 28, No. 3 (1993): 242-54.

Examines the domestic scene described in the Nantucket letters and suggests that the contradictions apparent throughout the letters are indicative of Crèvecoeur's uneasiness with changing gender roles in America.

Chevignard, Bernard. “St. John de Crèvecoeur in the Looking Glass: Letters from an American Farmer and the Making of a Man of Letters.” Early American Literature 19, No. 2, (Fall 1984): 173-90.

Discusses connections between incidents in Crèvecoeur's life and incidents described in Letters from an American Farmer.

Fichtelberg, Joseph. “Utopic Distresses: Crèvecoeur's Letters and Revolution.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 27, No. 1 (Spring 1994): 85-101.

Challenges the role of Letters as a faithful rendering of republican ideology in pre-Revolutionary America.

Holbo, Christine. “Imagination, Commerce, and the Politics of Associationism in Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer.” Early American Literature 32, Vol. 1 (1997): 20-65.

Analyzes Letters from an American Farmer within the context of the eighteenth-century narrative model associated with the language of sensibility and imagination.

Hurst, Richard M. “Snakelore Motifs in the Writings of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and Other Colonial Writers.” New York Folklore 9, No. 3-4 (Winter 1983): 55-97.

Claims that Crèvecoeur made extensive use of colonial folklore in his writings.

Philbrick, Thomas. “Crèvecoeur as New Yorker.” Early American Literature 11, No. 1 (Spring 1976): 22-30.

Argues that Crèvecoeur's years as a resident of New York gave him the unique perspective of both insider and outsider to the colonial American experience, and that this dual perspective is reflected in his writing.

Putz, Manfred. “Dramatic Elements and the Problem of Literary Mediation in the Works of Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur.” Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 3 (1985): 111-30.

Explores Crèvecoeur's work in terms of its dramatic elements.

Rice, Grantland S. “Crèvecoeur and the Politics of Authorship in Republican America.” Early American Literature 28, No. 2 (1993): 91-119.

Claims that Letters from an American Farmer is best understood if analyzed as an early novel.

Saar, Doreen Alvarez. “Crèvecoeur's ‘Thoughts on Slavery’: Letters from an American Farmer and Whig Rhetoric.” Early American Literature 22, No. 2 (Fall 1987): 192-203.

Maintains that Crèvecoeur's letter on the evils of slavery was meant to be understood both literally and symbolically since slavery as a symbol of the relationship between Britain and her colonies in America was part of well-established Whig rhetorical conventions.

Werge, Thomas. “Thomas Shepard and Crèvecoeur: Two Uses of the Image of the Bosom Serpent before Hawthorne.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal (1974): 236-39.

Discusses serpent imagery in Crèvecoeur's writing.

Additional coverage of Crèvecoeur's life and career is contained in the following source published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 37.