During the period from 1820 to 1860 American writers in New York and the South were concerned with breaking away from English themes and literary models, exploring the Americanness of their nation's literature. The scope of their work was wide - they were novelists, poets, essayists, editors, humorists, reformers, abolitionists, historians and scientists. They portrayed native peoples and life on the American frontier. They mined local history to create a rich new American folklore. They pioneered new incarnations of the short story and of verse. In short, the writers featured in DLB Volume 3 were among a group that profoundly changed the face of American - and world - literature that followed. 67 entries include:
William Cullen Bryant, John C. Calhoun, John Esten Cooke, James Fenimore Cooper, Horace Greeley, Henry William, Herbert Washington, Irving Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman.