For composition and introduction to literature courses, The Riverside Anthology of Literature has long been praised for its rich variety of selections, its interwoven commentary, its eloquent editorial prose, its unobtrusive apparatus, and its organizational flexibility. To acquaint students quickly with the specific qualities of a genre, each section now opens with six short selections that focus on a particular theme for easy comparison and contrast.
Doug Hunt is a resident of Columbia, Missouri, and also a full-time student of the city, both its past and its present. In 2010 his work was recognized with the Richard J. Margolis Award, given annually "journalist or essayist whose work combines warmth, humor, wisdom and concern with social justice." His essay on the 1923 lynching of James Scott was listed as "notable" in Best American Essays for 2004. His essay on the 1833-34 struggle of the slave named Sanford to win his freedom was a finalist for in the Missouri Review's editor's prize competition for 2011.
He is an admirer of John McPhee, Tracey Kidder, Melissa Fay Greene, and other nonfiction writers who respect (and even enjoy) hard facts, but who enter imaginatively into the lives of the people they write about. His aim is to combine a historian's accuracy with a novelist's sense of story and character.
