american women writers series

Fanny Fern was one of the most popular American writers of the mid-nineteenth century, the first woman newspaper columnist in the United States, and the most highly paid newspaper writer of her day. This volume gathers together for the first time almost one hundred selections of her best work as a journalist. Writing on such taboo subjects as prostitution, venereal disease, divorce, and birth control, Fern stripped the façade of convention from some of society's most sacred institutions, targeting cant and hypocrisy, pretentiousness and pomp.

This collection contains ten tales -- including five that have never before appeared in book form -- by Hamet Prescott Spofford, the only woman writer to master the mode of the symbolic romance, which is often clamed to represent the mainstream of American fiction. Spofford dazzled readers in the early 1860s with a number of stories that seemed to enlarge the boundaries of romantic fiction. She established a reputation as the female heir to the literary tradition of Poe and Hawthorne with such works as the detective story "In a Cellar," the complex symbolic romance "The Amber Gods," and the frightening tale of frontier adventure. "Circumstance." These three stories provide the most important female counterpart to the works of the major male romantics and represent the final flowering of romantic fiction in New England.

First published in 1824, Hobomok is the story of an upper-class white woman who marries an Indian chief, has a child, then leaves him--with the child--for another man.

The social movements of the 1960s - still vital and challenging - seen through the author's experiences as a civil rights activist, a feminist, an antiwar organizer, and a radical teacher.

american women writers series

Throughout his life, Melville lived surrounded by women, and he wove women's experiences into most of his literary work, early and late. The 12 essays in this collection extend the interest in Melville and women evident in recent scholarship, biography, art, and drama.

The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume One, surveys the lives and writings of nearly 400 Midwestern authors and identifies some of the most important criticism of their writings. The Dictionary is based on the belief that the literature of any region simultaneously captures the experience and influences the worldview of its people, reflecting as well as shaping the evolving sense of individual and collective identity, meaning, and values. Volume One presents individual lives and literary orientations and offers a broad survey of the Midwestern experience as expressed by its many diverse peoples over time.Philip A. Greasley's introduction fills in background information and describes the philosophy, focus, methodology, content, and layout of entries, as well as criteria for their inclusion. An extended lead-essay, "The Origins and Development of the Literature of the Midwest," by David D. Anderson, provides a historical, cultural, and literary context in which the lives and writings of individual authors can be considered.This volume is the first of an ambitious three-volume series sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and created by its members. Volume Two will provide similar coverage of non-author entries, such as sites, centers, movements, influences, themes, and genres. Volume Three will be a literary history of the Midwest. One goal of the series is to build understanding of the nature, importance, and influence of Midwestern writers and literature. Another is to provide information on writers from the early years of the Midwestern experience, as well as those now emerging, who are typically absent from existing reference works.

"A history of the early American novel, focusing on its origins in and relationship with American religion"-- Provided by publisher.