Four Great American Classics

What connects these four American masterpieces? Melville and Hawthorne were friends, and in a sense helped inspire each other. Wouldn't it then have made more sense to put together their two greatest masterpieces, ' The Scarlett Letter' and ' Moby Dick' Or is it only a matter of size and convenience that Melville's last work, and one of his great ones 'Billy Budd'is chosen for this volume? And why link with them Crane and Twain? True their best books are chosen and so of these four great American masters we have the best books of three. And only one's greatest masterpiece, and arguably the greatest prose masterpiece in American literature is left out. Yet how complain about the abundance of riches this volume offers? Each one of the four works here is a small world in itself. Hester Prynne ( A Scarlet Letter) Huck, Henry Fleming , and Billy Budd each is put through a kind of moral test. Two have more or less tragic ends (Hester and Billy Budd) and two have redemptive moral journeys which enable them to continue on their journeys of life, wiser and morally strengthened. This is great literature, the best America has to give. And the four taken together are if this is what the reader seeks, a bargain.

The Scarlet Letter is super. It is well written and tells a touching tale of Puritan hypocrisy. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece of American Literature. The Red Badge of Courage is Fine, and Billy Budd is the story of an innocent sailor prosecuted for a false charge of mutany.