Gilbert H. Muller, who received a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University, is currently professor of English and Special Assistant to the President at the LaGuardia campus of the City University of New York. He has also taught at Stanford University, Vassar College, and several universities overseas. Dr. Muller is the author of the award-winning Nightmares and Visions: Flannery O’Connor and the Catholic Grotesque, Chester Himes , and other critical studies. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Sewanee Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He is also a noted author and editor of textbooks in English and composition, including The Short Prose Reader with Harvey Wiener, and with John A Williams, The McGraw-Hill Introduction to Literature, Bridges: Literature across Cultures, and Ways In: Reading and Writing about Literature. Among Dr. Muller’s awards are National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Mellon Fellowship.

Harvey S. Wiener is currently affiliated with Marymount Manhattan College after serving as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Adelphi University. Previously University Dean for Academic Affairs, the City University of New York, he was founding president of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Dr. Wiener is the author of many books on reading and writing for college students and their teachers, including The Writing Room (Oxford, 1981). He is co-author of The McGraw-Hill College Handbook, a reference grammar and rhetoric text. Dr. Wiener has chaired the Teaching of Writing Division of the Modern Language Association (1987). He has taught writing at every level of education from elementary school to graduate school. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College, he holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature. Dr. Wiener has won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the Exxon Education Foundation.

This rhetorically organized, student-friendly reader includes short essays on a range of topics. Each selection is supported by exceptionally thorough and thoughtfully designed editorial apparatus that integrates reading, writing, and critical thinking. The quality, variety, and number of reading, writing, and thinking prompts provide students with ample support for reading and writing and can be adapted to a number of teaching approaches.