Reconstructs a dialogue between objectifiers (American Puritans, slaveowners) and objectifieds (Native Americans, slaves) by arguing that the literature of race in antebellum America is the continuing story of an encounter with the grotesque. The focus is on literature-from Puritan captivity accounts, fugitive slave narratives, and proslavery fiction to the work of Melville, Stowe, Douglass, and their contemporaries. But Cassuto also ranges from colonial prodigies to nineteenth-century freak shows and Sambo stereotyping, from horror movies to the Holocaust Museum.

This Companion provides fresh perspectives on the frequently read Dreiser classics, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, as well as on topics of perennial interest, which include Dreiser's representation of the city and his prose style. The volume investigates his representation of masculinity and femininity, and his treatment of ethnicity, among other topics.

This Companion provides fresh perspectives on the frequently read Dreiser classics, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, as well as on topics of perennial interest, which include Dreiser's representation of the city and his prose style. The volume investigates his representation of masculinity and femininity, and his treatment of ethnicity, among other topics.

Jack London has long been recognized as one of the most colorful figures in American literature. He is America s most widely translated author (into more than eighty languages), and although his works have been neglected until recently by academic critics in the United States, he is finally winning recognition as a major figure in American literary history.
The breadth and depth of new critical study of London s work in recent decades attest to his newfound respectability. London criticism has moved beyond a traditional concerns of realism and naturalism as well as beyond the timeworn...

Leonard Cassuto's cultural history links the testosterone-saturated heroes of American crime stories to the sensitive women of the nineteenth-century sentimental novel. From classics like The Big Sleep and The Talented Mr. Ripley to neglected paperback gems, Cassuto chronicles the dialogue--centered on the power of sympathy--between these popular genres and the sweeping social changes of the twentieth century, ending with a surprising connection between today's serial killers and the domestic fictions of long ago.

Leonard Cassuto's cultural history links the testosterone-saturated heroes of American crime stories to the sensitive women of the nineteenth-century sentimental novel. From classics like The Big Sleep and The Talented Mr. Ripley to neglected paperback gems, Cassuto chronicles the dialogue--centered on the power of sympathy--between these popular genres and the sweeping social changes of the twentieth century, ending with a surprising connection between today's serial killers and the domestic fictions of long ago.