These essays explore the impartial critical outlook American writers acquired through their experiences in Europe since 1850. Collectively, contributors reveal how the American writer's intuitive sense of freedom, coupled with their feeling of liberation from European influences, led to intellectual independence in the literary works they produced.

American Writers in Europe explores the impartial critical outlook that American writers acquired in different parts of Europe, from 1850 to the present, and used as a lens to view Europe and America. Focusing on some less familiar writers, it reveals intriguing aspects of the lives and works of American writers than those of the customarily anthologized expatriates. Offering a broad range of American experiences in Europe in an extensive span of time, the volume widens the history of the transatlantic cultural and literary dialogue between America and Europe.