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A Companion to American Fiction, 1865 - 1914

Robert Paul Lamb (Edited by), RP Lamb (Author), G. R. Thompson (Edited by)

9781405100649, Wiley

Hardback, published 21 November 2005

642 pages
25.4 x 18 x 4.6 cm, 1.297 kg

"All praise to Lamb and Thompson … Comprehensive, well written and carefully edited ... Essential."
Choice

"The editors have intended the Companion to be an introduction to the field and a reference tool for 'advanced undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members and general intellectuals'. In this they have succeeded admirably."
Reference Reviews

A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914 is a groundbreaking collection of essays written by leading critics for a wide audience of scholars, students, and interested general readers.

  • An exceptionally broad-ranging and accessible Companion to the study of American fiction of the post-civil war period and the early twentieth century Brings together 29 essays by top scholars, each of which presents a synthesis of the best research and offers an original perspective
  • Divided into sections on historical traditions and genres, contexts and themes, and major authors
  • Covers a mixture of canonical and the non-canonical themes, authors, literatures, and critical approaches
  • Explores innovative topics, such as ecological literature and ecocriticism, children's literature, and the influence of Darwin on fiction

List of Illustrations x

Notes on Contributors xi

Acknowledgments xviii

Editors' Introduction 1
Robert Paul Lamb and G. R. Thompson

PART I Historical Traditions and Genres 13

1 The Practice and Promotion of American Literary Realism 15
Nancy Glazener

2 Excitement and Consciousness in the Romance Tradition 35
William J. Scheick

3 The Sentimental and Domestic Traditions, 1865–1900 53
Gregg Camfield

4 Morality, Modernity, and "Malarial Restlessness": American Realism in its Anglo-European Contexts 77
Winfried Fluck

5 American Literary Naturalism 96
Christophe Den Tandt

6 American Regionalism: Local Color, National Literature, Global Circuits 119
June Howard

7 Women Authors and the Roots of American Modernism 140
Linda Wagner-Martin

8 The Short Story and the Short-Story Sequence, 1865–1914 149
J. Gerald Kennedy

PART II Contexts and Themes 175

9 Ecological Narrative and Nature Writing 177
S. K. Robisch

10 "The Frontier Story": The Violence of Literary History 201
Christine Bold

11 Native American Narratives: Resistance and Survivance 222
Gerald Vizenor

12 Representing the Civil War and Reconstruction: From Uncle Tom to Uncle Remus 240
Kathleen Diffley

13 Engendering the Canon: Women's Narratives, 1865–1914 260
Grace Farrell

14 Confronting the Crisis: African American Narratives 279
Dickson D. Bruce, Jr.

15 Fiction's Many Cities 296
Sidney H. Bremer

16 Mapping the Culture of Abundance: Literary Narratives and Consumer Culture 318
Sarah Way Sherman

17 Secrets of the Master's Deed Box: Narrative and Class 340
Christopher P. Wilson

18 Ethnic Realism 356
Robert M. Dowling

19 Darwin, Science, and Narrative 377
Bert Bender

20 Writing in the "Vulgar Tongue": Law and American Narrative 395
William E. Moddelmog

21 Planning Utopia 411
Thomas Peyser

22 American Children's Narrative as Social Criticism, 1865–1914 428
Gwen Athene Tarbox

PART III Major Authors 449

23 An Idea of Order at Concord: Soul and Society in the Mind of Louisa May Alcott 451
John Matteson

24 America Can Break Your Heart: On the Significance of Mark Twain 468
Robert Paul Lamb

25 William Dean Howells and the Bourgeois Quotidian: Affection, Skepticism, Disillusion 499
Michael Anesko

26 Henry James in a New Century 518
John Carlos Rowe

27 Toward a Modernist Aesthetic: The Literary Legacy of Edith Wharton 536
Candace Waid and Clare Colquitt

28 Sensations of Style: The Literary Realism of Stephen Crane 557
William E. Cain

29 Theodore Dreiser and the Force of the Personal 572
Clare Virginia Eby

Index 587

Subject Areas: Literature: history & criticism [DS]
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