“The Pilgrim Fathers … driven by IT.”

Beginning his Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence questions the perceived “childishness” of the old American classics.

The old American art-speech contains an alien quality, which belongs to the American continent and to nowhere else. But, of course, so long as we insist on reading the books as children’s tales, we miss all that.

American literature requires — deserves even — a reappraisal, because it is we who are missing out when we patronise those writers of the new w...