Introduction Chapter 1: The Error He Championed: The Minister's Charge and Howells after The Rise of Silas Lapham Chapter 2: A Hazard of New Fortunes and the Aesthetic Immaturity of the American Reader Chapter 3: Disintegrating Under the Reader's Eye: The Aging Howells and his Public, 1890-1920 Chapter 4: The Leatherwood God and My Mark Twain: The Importance of Samuel Clemens in Howells's Literary Imagination after 1910 Chapter 5: The Vacation of the Kelwyns, The Critical Bookstore, and Henry James's Right of Leaning Back. Conclusion Bibliography Index
Paul Abeln received his Ph.D. American and Comparative Literature from Washington University in 2000.