Description: In the mid-nineteenth century writers such as Hawthorne and Melville produced works of fiction that even today help define American literature. In this work of innovative literary history, Jonathan Arac explains what made this remarkable creativity possible and what it accomplished.
Brief description: Jonathan Arac is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
Review Quotes: Arac's achievement is that he has covered the prose of the period authoritatively but from a highly original angle--not an easy combination. That's why his book reads freshly and compellingly rather than like the usual history of the topic. And that's why his pages are so valuable.--W. T. Lhamon Jr., author of Jump Jim Crow: Lost Plays, Lyrics, and Street Prose of the First Atlantic Popular Culture