Literary discourse: topic of debate: Who is the best American writer of all tim

Question:

Literary discourse: topic of debate: Who is the best American writer of all time?

Support your nominee with cogent argument.

My nominee is the one American writer most often singled out by nearly every American luminary in the field: The immortal Thomas Wolfe (1900-1931). "O, lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again."

Thomas Wolfe's works are enshrined at the Harvard University Library. He is regarded as rawly emotional and at the same time lyrical and poignant. His semi-autobiographical work describes both a young man and a young country coming of age with such austere and, at times, tragic beauty that his novels read like epic poems. I mosty highly recommend Thomas Wolfe to any reader who lusts for the shared experiences of living and who loves the written word with all the blind passion of a steam locomotive hurtling toward the next bend in the rail.

Additional Details

1 week ago
My second choice is the great Henry James. What follows, a list of his works, speaks for itself:

Novels
Watch and Ward (1871)
Roderick Hudson (1875)
The American (1877)
The Europeans (1878)
Confidence (1879)
Washington Square (1880)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
The Bostonians (1886)
The Princess Casamassima (1886)
The Reverberator (1888)
The Tragic Muse (1890)
The Other House (1896)
The Spoils of Poynton (1897)
What Maisie Knew (1897)
The Awkward Age (1899)
The Sacred Fount (1901)
The Wings of the Dove (1902)
The Ambassadors (1903)
The Golden Bowl (1904)
The Whole Family (collaborative novel with eleven other authors, 1908)
The Outcry (1911)
The Ivory Tower (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)
The Sense of the Past (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)

Novellas and tales
A Passionate Pilgrim (1871)
Madame de Mauves (1874)
Daisy Miller (1878)
A Bundle of Letters (1879)

1 week ago
The Author of Beltraffio (1884)
The Aspern Papers (1888)
A London Life (1888)
The Pupil (1891)
The Real Thing (1892)
The Middle Years (1893)
The Altar of the Dead (1895)
The Turn of the Screw (1898)
In the Cage (1898)
Europe (1899)
Paste (1899)
The Great Good Place (1900)
Mrs. Medwin (1900)
The Birthplace (1903)
The Beast in the Jungle (1903)
The Jolly Corner (1908)

Travel writings
A Little Tour in France (1884)
English Hours (1905)
The American Scene (1907)
Italian Hours (1909)

[edit] Literary criticism
French Poets and Novelists (1878)
Hawthorne (1879)
Partial Portraits (1888)
Essays in London and Elsewhere (1893)
New York Edition (1907–1909)
Notes on Novelists (1914)
Notebooks (various)

[edit] Autobiography
A Small Boy and Others (1913)
Notes of a Son and Brother (1914)
The Middle Years (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)

[edit] Plays
Theatricals (1894)
Theatricals: Secon

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: 1 week ago
My second choice is the great Henry James. What follows, a list of his works, speaks for itself:

Novels
Watch and Ward (1871)
Roderick Hudson (1875)
The American (1877)
The Europeans (1878)
Confidence (1879)
Washington Square (1880)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
The Bostonians (1886)
The Princess Casamassima (1886)
The Reverberator (1888)
The Tragic Muse (1890)
The Other House (1896)
The Spoils of Poynton (1897)
What Maisie Knew (1897)
The Awkward Age (1899)
The Sacred Fount (1901)
The Wings of the Dove (1902)
The Ambassadors (1903)
The Golden Bowl (1904)
The Whole Family (collaborative novel with eleven other authors, 1908)
The Outcry (1911)
The Ivory Tower (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)
The Sense of the Past (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)

Novellas and tales
A Passionate Pilgrim (1871)
Madame de Mauves (1874)
Daisy Miller (1878)
A Bundle of Letters (1879)