A critical survey of the picturesque tour in national literature from Charles Brockden Brown to writers of the American Renaissance, detailing how American writers' attitudes toward this European aesthetic shaped their creation of an American literary nationalism. Contains chapters on Brown's Edgar

Harvey was grappling with his own interpretation of Poe's only book-length narrative when he discovered a remarkable critical history that includes the widest possible disagreements on such basic factors as its genre, the seriousness of Poe's intent, its place on the spectrum between genius and hack

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.