Early American Literature

Founded in 1965, Early American Literature is the official journal of the MLA’s Forum on Early American Literature. It is the only journal that focuses on the scholarship and criticism of American literature through the early national period. It typically includes articles, provocations and inventions, review essays, and many book, resource, and conference reviews. For more information, visit Early American Literature‘s website.

Early American Literature has been adopted as the official publication of the Society of Early Americanists. Members receive a subscription to the journal as a benefit of membership. For more information, visit our membership page.

Katy Chiles, associate professor of English at the University of Tennessee, teaches and writes about early American literary studies, African American and Native American literature, critical race theory, and print cultures. Her book, Transformable Race:  Surprising Metamorphoses in the Literatures of Early America, was published by Oxford University Press, and her work has appeared in PMLA, Early American Literature, American Literature, Race in American Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP, 2022), and African American Literature in Transition, Volume 1, 1750-1800 (Cambridge UP, 2022). She is currently working on another book project that examines race, collaboration, and print history in early American literature, which has been supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

Cassander Smith is an associate professor of English and associate dean of academic affairs for the Honors College at the University of Alabama. Her teaching and research focus on early African American, American, and Caribbean literature, with a general focus on the early Black Atlantic. She is the author of Black Africans in the British Imagination: English Narratives of the early Atlantic (LSU Press, 2016) and Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic (LSU Press 2023). Her current works in progress include a monograph, tentatively titled “Wasteful Bodies: Conservation, Preservation and the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” which examines sustainability rhetoric in the shaping of the transatlantic slave trade.

Subscription Rates

Individual price – $52.00 1-year, $136 3-years
Institutional price – $90.00 1-year, $245 3-years

We have a partnership with Duke University Press (DUP) for print subscriptions and society memberships. Agencies are eligible for a discount on the institutional rate. If you have questions about an existing subscription or membership please contact DUP Journals Services:

• Individuals can subscribe or purchase a membership online
• Email subscriptions@dukeupress.edu
• Phone toll-free in the US and Canada (888) 651-0122
• Phone (919) 688-5134

Book Prize

Open Access Article

Scholars specializing in early American literature have a duty to the public to raise awareness of how past events and beliefs impact our current lives–especially in the midst of a global pandemic and nationwide protests against systemic racism. This is why EAL has decided to provide Christopher Trigg’s essay, “The Racial Politics of Resurrection in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World”, open-access on their website. You can read the full article at the following link:

“The Racial Politics of Resurrection in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” by Christopher Trigg