Q. D. Leavis: Collected Essays: Volume 2, The American Novel and Reflections on the European Novel

All the essays are informed by that broad sociological view of literature that caused Q. D. Leavis to ask how the novel rose and why it flourished.

Q. D. Leavis (Author), G. Singh (Edited by)

9780521318259, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 May 1985

292 pages
22.4 x 14.4 x 1.9 cm, 0.405 kg

Q. D. Leavis was one of the finest critics of the novel. Her published essays appeared as articles and reviews of remarkable trenchancy in Scrutiny (of which she was effectively co-editor with her husband F. R. Leavis), or as lectures or as introductions to editions of classic novels. Now, for the first time, they have been collected and reprinted in three volumes. This volume collects her lecture 'The American Novel'; essays and lectures on Henry James, Hawthorne, Melville and Edith Wharton; and the lectures 'The French Novel', 'The Russian Novel' and 'The Italian Novel'. There is an introduction by the editor, Professor G. Singh. All the essays are informed by that broad 'sociological view of literature that caused Q. D. Leavis to ask how the novel rose and why it flourished.

Sources and Acknowledgements
Editor's introduction
1. The American Novel
2. Hawthorne as poet
3. Melville: the 1853–6 phase
4. Henry James and the disabilities of the American novelist in the nineteenth century
5. James, Trollope and the American-English confrontation theme
6. A note on literary indebtedness: Dickens, George, Eliot, Henry James
7. The fox is the novelist's idea: Henry James and the house beautiful
8. Henry James: the stories
9. The institution of Henry James
10. Henry James's heiress: the importance of Edith Wharton
11. Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth
12. The French novel
13. The Russian novel
14. The Italian novel
Notes.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]