Reading the American Novel 1865 – 1914

An indispensable tool for teachers and students of American literature, Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 provides a comprehensive introduction to the American novel in the post–civil war period. Leading literary scholar G. R. Thompson shares his insights into the fiction of one of the most pivotal periods in American literature, and each chapter offers both a lucid distillation of the key conditions of the historical and cultural contexts and a practical guide for studying literary works.

An accessible introduction to the literature of the period, this book demonstrates the changing mentality of 19th–century America entering the 20th century, framed between two monumental wars. Demonstrating different attitudes toward and representations of contemporary concerns as they appeared in literature, Thompson addresses the relationship between the intellectual and artistic output of the time and the turbulent socio–political context. Written in clear and accessible prose, with fresh insights and textual analysis, this is an illuminating read for anyone interested in 19th–century and early modern fiction, American literature, and American cultural history.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

1 Toward the Great American Novel : Romance and Romanticism in the Age of Realism 9

2 Of Realism and Reality: Definitions and Contexts 25

3 Dramas of the Broken Teacup: American Quiet Realism 41

4 The Nature of Naturalism: Definitions and Backgrounds 55

5 Implacable Nature, Household Tragedy, and Epic Romance 73

6 Frank Norris: The Beast Within 91

7 The Rocking Horse Winners: Theodore Dreiser and Urban Naturalism 109

8 Subjective Realism: Stephen Crane s Impressionist Fictions 125

9 Impressions of War: The Interior Battlefield 141

10 Sense and Sensibility: Sentimental Domesticity and New Woman s Fiction 157

11 Domestic Feminism: The Problematic Louisa May Alcott 179

12 All the Happy Endings : Marriage, Insanity, and Suicide 195

13 Vulgarians at the Gate: Edith Wharton and the Collapse of Gentility 215

14 Tea–Table as Jungle: Henry James and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life 235

15 Economies of Pain: W. D. Howells 261

16 The Gilded Age : Genteel Critics and Militant Muckrakers 283

17 What Is An American? Regionalism and Race 299

18 The Territory Ahead: Emerging African American Voices 323

19 The Dream of a Republic : War, Reconstruction, and Future History 343

20 At the Modernist Margin: Mark Twain 367

Bibliographical Resources 387

Index 421

G. R. Thompson is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Purdue University. He has written widely on the topic of American fiction and romanticism, including books and articles on the relation of the romance to the realist tradition, the gothic fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the travel narratives of Herman Melville. He is the editor of various editions, including the Norton Critical Edition of The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. He is the former editor of Poe Studies and ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance.