In a series of essays written especially for this volume, five distinguished critics offer a range of approaches, discussing the novel in terms of its composition and position in Faulkner's career, its structure and narrative techniques, and its relation to the religious, racial, and sexual assumptions of the society it represents.
In a series of essays written especially for this volume, five distinguished critics offer a range of approaches, discussing the novel in terms of its...
Published less than fifty years ago, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man shares with older classic works the odd quality of seeming to have been in place much longer. It is a novel that encompasses much of the American scene and character: though told by a single Afro-American voice and set in the contemporary South and then in modern New York City, its references are to the First World War, to Reconstruction, to the Civil War and slavery, to the founding of the American republic, to Columbus, and to the country's frontier past. In his introduction to this volume Robert O'Meally discusses Ellison's...
Published less than fifty years ago, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man shares with older classic works the odd quality of seeming to have been in place mu...
"The American Novel" series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to the great works of American fiction. Each volume begins with a substantial introduction by a distinguished authority on the text, giving details of the novel's composition, publication history, and contemporary reception, as well as a survey of the major critical trends and readings from first publication to the present. This overview is followed by a group of new essays, each commissioned from a leading scholar in the field, which together constitute a forum of interpretive methods and...
"The American Novel" series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to the great works of American fiction. Each vo...
The American (1877) was written the very year Henry James committed himself to making his way as an author outside of America. It thus formed part of the brief that James had to draw up both for and against his countrymen. This collection of original essays casts new light on this and other major aspects of the novel: the French literary influences on James as he gravitated between the genres of the romantic and the realistic novel; the many-layered French political scene that he incorporated into the novel; the complex gender roles of his characters; and the pervasive effect of capitalism...
The American (1877) was written the very year Henry James committed himself to making his way as an author outside of America. It thus formed part of ...
First published in 1895, The Red Badge of Courage found immediate success and brought its author immediate fame. In his introduction to this volume, Lee Clark Mitchell discusses how Crane broke with the conventions of both fiction and journalism to create a uniquely ???disruptive??? prose style. The five essays that follow each explore different aspects of the novel. One studies the problem of establishing the authentic text; another examines it as a war novel; a third considers it as a critique of the rising mood of militant imperialism in the 1890s; a fourth focuses on the double...
First published in 1895, The Red Badge of Courage found immediate success and brought its author immediate fame. In his introduction to this volume, L...
Increased interest in the role of women and minorities in establishing the canon of American literature has led to renewed interest in Uncle Tom's Cabin. The essays in this volume set out to provide contemporary readers with a critical and historical interpretation of the novel that reflects the best of recent scholarship. In his introduction Eric J. Sundquist attempts to show that Uncle Tom's Cabin boldly takes issue with both proslavery arguments and prevailing prejudices among abolitionists, employing the forms of popular melodrama and heated rhetoric to carry its complex argument. The...
Increased interest in the role of women and minorities in establishing the canon of American literature has led to renewed interest in Uncle Tom's Cab...
The American Novel series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to the great works of American fiction by giving details of the novel's composition, publication history and contemporary reception. The group of essays, each specially commissioned from a leading scholar in the field, examines the interpretative methods and prominent ideas on the text. There are also helpful guides to further reading. Specifically designed for undergraduates, the series will be a powerful resource for anyone engaged in the critical analysis of major American novels. This...
The American Novel series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to the great works of American fiction by giving ...
The introduction to this volume charts the fortunes of The Great Gatsby from its mixed reception and disappointing sales on publication in 1925, through its increasing popularity in the 1940s, to its critical and popular elevation from the standing of an important 'period piece' to that of an undisputed classic of American literature. Of the five essays that follow, one traces this revival in greater detail, and another sets the book in the context of the perennial quest for the 'great American novel'. Two other essays examine the central from the perspective of a practising contemporary...
The introduction to this volume charts the fortunes of The Great Gatsby from its mixed reception and disappointing sales on publication in 1925, throu...
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.
The Portrait of a Lady is arguably Henry James' most appealing and accessible novel. The introduction to this volume of specially written essays situa...
