Americans on Fiction, 1776-1900 Edited by Peter Rawlings

This is a unique collection of primary resource materials for the study of post-Independence American fiction. The set provides a comprehensive selection of significant reviews, short articles and essays drawn from famous periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation and Galaxy, as well as many of the lesser known journals and magazines of the period. Americans on Fiction is the first extensive collection of American criticism of American and European fiction to be published. The material presented here will compel a reinterpretation of America’s determining contribution to the evolution of theories of fiction in the nineteenth century and beyond. In the colonial period, and for some time after independence, the writing and reading of fiction in America was condemned by members of the Puritan establishment for creating 'momentary scenes of unreal bliss', and twisting 'the understanding into every obliquity of distortion.' At that point, few could have foreseen that by the close of the nineteenth century Americans would not only dominate the theory and practice of fiction but also be among its principal innovators in the realms of naturalism and modernism. ISBN-13: 9781851967551 Pages: 1320 Height 234 mm Width 156 mm Publication Date: 15-Dec-02 Publisher: Format: Hardback