Highlights the lives and works of 90 authors from the U.S. and Canada, including novelists, poets, dramatists, writers of nonfiction, and lyricists.

Volume 1: James Agee -- Julia Alvarez -- Sherwood Anderson -- Maya Angelou -- Margaret Atwood -- James Baldwin -- Saul Bellow. Volume 2: Stephen Vincent Benét -- Judy Blume -- Arna Bontemps -- Gwendolyn Brooks -- Pearl S. Buck -- Truman Capote -- Raymond Carver -- Willa Cather. Volume 3: Robert Cormier -- E.E. Cummings -- Robertson Davies -- Joan Didion -- Theodore Dreiser -- Paul Laurence Dunbar -- Bob Dylan. Volume 4: T.S. Eliot -- Ralph Ellison -- William Faulkner -- Edna Ferber -- F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Horton Foote -- Robert Frost. Volume 5: Ernest Gaines -- John Gardner -- William Gibson -- Nikki Giovanni -- Lorraine Hansberry -- Ernest Hemingway -- John Hersey -- S.E. Hinton. Volume 6: Langston Hughes -- Zora Neale Hurston -- John Irving -- Robinson Jeffers -- John Knowles -- Margaret Laurence -- Harper Lee -- Sinclair Lewis. Volume 7: Jack London -- Archibald MacLeish -- Bernard Malamud -- David Mamet -- Edgar Lee Masters -- Cormac McCarthy -- Carson McCullers -- D'Arcy McNickle. Volume 8: Arthur Miller -- Marianne Moore -- Toni Morrison -- Alice Munro -- Frank Norris -- Joyce Carol Oates -- Tim O'Brien -- Flannery O'Connor. Volume 9: Eugene O'Neill -- Judith Ortiz Cofer -- Marge Piercy -- Sylvia Plath -- Katherine Anne Porter -- Charles Portis -- Chaim Potok -- Adrienne Rich. Volume 10: J.D. Salinger -- Carl Sandburg -- Jack Schaefer -- Anne Sexton -- Upton Sinclair -- Isaac Bachevis Singer -- Gertrude Stein. Volume 11: John Steinbeck -- Wallace Stevens -- William Styron -- Amy Tan -- Studs Terkel -- Anne Tyler -- Alice Walker. Volume 12: Eudora Welty -- Edith Wharton -- Thornton Wilder -- Tennessee Williams -- William Carlos Williams -- Richard Wright -- Paul Zindel. Volume 13: Index.