To have great poets, there must also be great audiences. Whitman's dictum articulates a claim that is as significant as it is questionable for American poetry. Nowhere is this more evident than in the influential anthologies between 1745 and 1950.

Their versions of the poetic tradition reflected and shaped the nation's cultural self-understanding, provided essential impulses to literary-critical debate, and offered guidance to young authors. This study, which also draws on publishing archives, author correspondence, and contemporary press texts, examines the genesis, profile, and impact of the most important anthology projects and situates them within the context of American and transatlantic reading culture.

Thus, beyond essentialist theses and ideological canon debates, it opens up a view of the historical diversity of Anglo-American poetry.