Reading the American Novel 1780-1865 provides valuable
insights into the evolution and diversity of fictional genres
produced in the United States from the late 18th century until the
Civil War, and helps introductory students to interpret and
understand the fiction from this popular period.
* Offers an overview of early fictional genres and introduces
ways to interpret them today
* Features in depth examinations of specific novels
* Explores the social and historical contexts of the time to help
the readers’ understanding of the stories
* Explores questions of identity – about the novel, its
19th-century readers, and the emerging structure of the United
States – as an important backdrop to understanding American
fiction
* Profiles the major authors, including Louisa May Alcott,
Charles Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, alongside less familiar
writers such as Fanny Fern, Caroline Kirkland, George Lippard,
Catharine Sedgwick, and E. D. E. N. Southworth
* Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title
Inhoudsopgave
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xv
1 Introduction to the American Novel: From Charles Brockden
Brown’s Gothic Novels to Caroline Kirkland’s Wilderness 1
2 Historical Codes in Literary Analysis: The Writing Projects of
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Stoddard, and Hannah Crafts 23
3 Women, Blood, and Contract: Land Claims in Lydia Maria Child,
Catharine Sedgwick, and James Fenimore Cooper 45
4 Black Rivers, Red Letters, and White Whales: Mobility and
Desire in Catharine Williams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman
Melville 67
5 Promoting the Nation in James Fenimore Cooper and Harriet
Beecher Stowe 91
6 Women’s Worlds in the Nineteenth-Century Novel: Susan B.
Warner, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Fanny Fern, E. D. E. N.
Southworth, Harriet Wilson, and Louisa May Alcott 119
Afterword 151
Further Reading 165
Index 171
Over de auteur
Shirley Samuels is Professor of English and American
Studies at Cornell University. She is the author of Romances of
the Republic (1996) and Facing America (2004), and
editor of The Culture of Sentiment (1992) and The
Companion to American Fiction, 1780-1865 (2004). She also
edited the Cambridge Companion to Abraham Lincoln
(2012).
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