Library of America
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The Library of America (LoA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.
Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published more than 150 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip Roth, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Saul Bellow, including the selected writings of several U.S. presidents. The first books were published in 1982. Besides the works of many individual writers, the series includes anthologies like Writing Los Angeles and Reporting World War II.
The Pléiade series published in France provided the model for the LoA. The publisher aims to keep classics in print permanently to preserve America's literary heritage. Although the LoA sells more than a quarter-million volumes annually, the publisher depends on individual contributions to help meet the costs of preparing, marketing and manufacturing its books.
LoA texts are prepared by recognized scholars, and determined efforts are made to correct errors and omissions in previous editions. For instance, the LoA text of Richard Wright's Native Son restored a number of passages that had been previously cut. Technically, the books are designed to be as long-lasting as possible, with acid-free paper, durable binding cloth, and flexible but firm binding boards.
Interestingly, one of the founders of the LoA, Jason Epstein, has left the organization and expressed doubts about the LoA's continued vitality in his book Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future (2001). Epstein wrote that the LoA was not managing its funds well and was beginning to publish some volumes of marginal quality. Epstein also stated that he would have concentrated on online sales from the beginning of the LoA if the Internet had existed in its current form in the 1980s.
Reference
Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein, W. W. Norton & Company 2001 ISBN 0393049841External link
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