The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists

This volume provides newly commissioned essays from leading scholars and critics on the social and cultural history of the American novel.

Timothy Parrish (Edited by)

9781107013131, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 November 2012

368 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.71 kg

'The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists should appeal to all levels, from students studying American literature to general readers interested in learning more about a broad range of talented authors, representing the multi-ethnic narratives of America's history. Editor Timothy Parrish and his fellow contributors have compiled an accessible and informative guide, and a useful addition to library shelves.' Reference Reviews

This Companion examines the full range and vigor of the American novel. From the American exceptionalism of James Fenimore Cooper to the apocalyptic post-Americanism of Cormac McCarthy, these newly commissioned essays from leading scholars and critics chronicle the major aesthetic innovations that have shaped the American novel over the past two centuries. The essays evaluate the work, life and legacy of influential American novelists including Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Cather, Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon and Morrison, while situating them within the context of their literary predecessors and successors. The volume also highlights less familiar, though equally significant writers such as Theodore Dreiser and Djuna Barnes, providing a balanced and wide-ranging survey of use to students, teachers and general readers of American literature.

Introduction Timothy Parrish
1. James Fenimore Cooper Stephen Railton
2. Nathaniel Hawthorne Robert Milder
3. Herman Melville Clark Davis
4. Harriet Beecher Stowe Arthur Riss
5. Mark Twain Peter Messent
6. Henry James Thomas J. Otten
7. Edith Wharton Pamela Knights
8. Theodore Dreiser Clare Eby
9. Willa Cather Timothy Parrish
10. F. Scott Fitzgerald Ruth Prigozy
11. Ernest Hemingway Eugene Goodheart
12. William Faulkner Philip Weinstein
13. Henry Roth Hana Wirth-Nesher
14. Djuna Barnes Alex Goody
15. Zora Neale Hurston Lovalerie King
16. Richard Wright William Dow
17. Raymond Chandler Leonard Cassuto
18. Ralph Ellison David Yaffe
19. J. D. Salinger Sarah Graham
20. Patricia Highsmith Joan Schenkar
21. Vladimir Nabokov Julian W. Connoly
22. Jack Kerouac Joshua Kupetz
23. Saul Bellow Victoria Aarons
24. Kurt Vonnegut Todd Davis
25. John Updike James Schiff
26. Thomas Pynchon David Seed
27. Toni Morrison Valerie Smith
28. Philip Roth Debra Shostak
29. Don DeLillo Thomas Heise
30. Cormac McCarthy Brian Evenson
Guide to further reading
Index.

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