A dictionary of characters from American literature. The two volumes cover more than two centuries of characters, from 1789, the date of the first American novel, through to the 20th century. There are more than 16,000 entries - over 5000 more than in the previous edition -spanning a broad scope of contemporary popular fiction, including characters from dozens of American novels published since 1980. Drawn from award-winning, best-selling and critically-acclaimed works, each entry identifies the novel in which the character appears and summarizes the character's role and relationship to other characters in the novel. This edition also includes indices that allow readers to search for information by title and author.