Although E.A. Poe had recognized the genius of John Neal (1793-1876) and although H.L. Mencken
believed that Neal might have been the most important American literary critic of his time his
contribution to American literature has been overshadowed by the performances of those authors
he blazed trails for - Herman Melville Walt Whitman and Mark Twain -. The first comprehensive
Neal anthology reveals the dynamism by which at the beginning of the nineteenth century the
USA started with their emancipation from the European literary tradition.
