American Experience Series

Publisher: Corinth Books

Size: 4 1⁄4 x 7 1⁄8

Years: 1961-1963

Related Series: --

American Experience Series: New Paperback Line, PW, Nov. 21, 1960, at 20.

According to Ted Wilentz & Bill Zavatsky, Behind the Writer, Ahead of the Reader: A Short History of Corinth Books, 43 TRI-QUARTERLY 595, 602, 604 (1978), the American Experience series was a departure for the small press:

In that same year, 1960, Corinth took three different directions. The first was its American Experience Series, a series of reprints based primarily on first-person narratives. This was fundamentally Eli's project, and it included classics such as Lewis Henry Morgan's League of the Iroquois and Owen Chase's Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex, which figured so importantly in the making of Moby-Dick. We used Henry Bamford Parkes, the great historian at New York University, as a consultant. Once he knew what we wanted to do (and he liked the idea of the series), he supplied various ideas which we either accepted or rejected. As is usual with small presses, we didn't sell many of the twenty-one titles we republished in this series.

The Tri-Quarterly article also includes a bibliography of Corinth Books from 1959-1973, including a list of all 21 titles in the American Experience series published from 1961-1963.