A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914 is a groundbreaking collection of essays written by leading critics for a wide audience of scholars, students, and interested general readers.* An exceptionally broad-ranging and accessible Companion to the study of American fiction of the post-civil war period and the early twentieth century Brings together 29 essays by top scholars, each of which presents a synthesis of the best research and offers an original perspective* Divided into sections on historical traditions and genres, contexts and themes, and major authors* Covers a mixture of canonical and the non-canonical themes, authors, literatures, and critical approaches* Explores innovative topics, such as ecological literature and ecocriticism, children's literature, and the influence of Darwin on fiction

List of Illustrations xNotes on Contributors xiAcknowledgments xviiiEditors' Introduction 1Robert Paul Lamb and G. R. ThompsonPART I Historical Traditions and Genres131 The Practice and Promotion of American Literary Realism15Nancy Glazener2 Excitement and Consciousness in the Romance Tradition 35William J. Scheick3 The Sentimental and Domestic Traditions, 1865-190053Gregg Camfield4 Morality, Modernity, and "Malarial Restlessness": AmericanRealism in its Anglo-European Contexts 77Winfried Fluck5 American Literary Naturalism 96Christophe Den Tandt6 American Regionalism: Local Color, National Literature, GlobalCircuits 119June Howard7 Women Authors and the Roots of American Modernism 140Linda Wagner-Martin8 The Short Story and the Short-Story Sequence, 1865-1914149J. Gerald KennedyPART II Contexts and Themes 1759 Ecological Narrative and Nature Writing 177S. K. Robisch10 "The Frontier Story": The Violence of Literary History201Christine Bold11 Native American Narratives: Resistance and Survivance222Gerald Vizenor12 Representing the Civil War and Reconstruction: From Uncle Tomto Uncle Remus 240Kathleen Diffley13 Engendering the Canon: Women's Narratives, 1865-1914260Grace Farrell14 Confronting the Crisis: African American Narratives 279Dickson D. Bruce, Jr.15 Fiction's Many Cities 296Sidney H. Bremer16 Mapping the Culture of Abundance: Literary Narratives andConsumer Culture 318Sarah Way Sherman17 Secrets of the Master's Deed Box: Narrative and Class340Christopher P. Wilson18 Ethnic Realism 356Robert M. Dowling19 Darwin, Science, and Narrative 377Bert Bender20 Writing in the "Vulgar Tongue": Law and American Narrative395William E. Moddelmog21 Planning Utopia 411Thomas Peyser22 American Children's Narrative as Social Criticism,1865-1914 428Gwen Athene TarboxPART III Major Authors 44923 An Idea of Order at Concord: Soul and Society in the Mind ofLouisa May Alcott 451John Matteson24 America Can Break Your Heart: On the Significance of MarkTwain 468Robert Paul Lamb25 William Dean Howells and the Bourgeois Quotidian: Affection,Skepticism, Disillusion 499Michael Anesko26 Henry James in a New Century 518John Carlos Rowe27 Toward a Modernist Aesthetic: The Literary Legacy of EdithWharton 536Candace Waid and Clare Colquitt28 Sensations of Style: The Literary Realism of Stephen Crane557William E. Cain29 Theodore Dreiser and the Force of the Personal 572Clare Virginia EbyIndex 587