The new Student's Encyclopedia of American Literary Characters is a comprehensive four-volume set designed to help students approach American literature in what is often the most appealing way--through the most memorable characters of the greatest works. Approximately 900 in-depth character entries, ranging from about 1,000 to 1,400 words each, are organized alphabetically by author and then by work. Each entry features an assessment of the character's traits, as well as an indication of the character's role in the work. Two to five discussion questions accompany each entry and help provide...

Brower had left San Francisco with the intention of making a short dash north on a whaling ship bound for the mythic Arctic Circle. Adventure had a way of following Charlie Brower. His initial landing turned into a fifty-year long ice-bound lifestyle. Once he stepped off the whaler and back onto dry, albeit frozen land, Brower took a job as master of the whaling station. But, though commerce brought him north, it was the people that helped keep him there for Charlie soon became fast friends with the native Inuit people. They taught him how to hunt seals on the ice, caribou on the tundra, and...