Literature and Journalism: Inspirations, Intersections, and Inventions from Ben Franklin to Stephen Colbert

Literature and journalism have been intimate companions in American letters for three centuries. This collection of essays, the first of its kind, will explore the variety of ways that the two fields have intersected in the lives and works of American writers. Here, leading scholars examine poetry in Civil War-era newspapers, truth and falsehood in the age of yellow journalism, and the value of newspapers as a source for literary scholarship, as well as the specific experiences and contributions of Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Colbert, and other American authors and journalists.