Stacey Margolis rethinks a key chapter in American literary history, challenging the idea that nineteenth-century American culture was dominated by an ideology

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Few concepts are more widely discussed or more passionately invoked in American public culture than

Tracing the segmentation of the literary marketplace in 19th century America, this book analyses the implications of the subdivided literary field for readers,

This book examines how mass democracy was understood before public opinion could be measured by polls. It demonstrates how novels by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel

In this book, Glenn Hendler explores what he calls the "logic of sympathy" in novels by Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, T. S. Arthur, Martin Delany, Horatio Al