In the introduction to this volume, Frank Lentricchia provides an overview of the critical reception of the novel and examines in its context other works by Don DeLillo. The other essays in the volume discuss DeLillo's view of family and divorce, Hitler's role in the 20th century, technology as a mortal threat, and postmodern America. This collection offers suggestive means by which to approach DeLillo's important contemporary work.

The Portrait of a Lady is arguably Henry James' most appealing and accessible novel. The introduction to this volume of specially written essays situates the novel in its cultural and historical context and discusses the important revisions that James later made to the text. The essays that follow address the novel's place in the tradition of modern narrative, its relation to popular women's fiction on the question of marriage, the influence of Henry James' brother William, and the character of the heroine seen from a psychoanalytic point of view.

My Antonia is the Cather novel that is most often taught in high school and college courses, and the one that most readers try first when they approach Cather. It is at once her most autobiographical novel and her most aesthetically complex; it can be enjoyed both for its simple, pure prose and for its literary depth. The essays in this volume place the novel in the context of American literary history, African-American music, and Southern writing, and offer illuminating ways of reading Cather's best-known work.