This Companion examines a number of issues related to the terms realism and naturalism. The introduction seeks both to discuss the problems in the use of these two terms in relation to late nineteenth-century fiction and to describe the history of previous efforts to make the terms expressive of American writing of this period. The Companion includes ten essays which fall into four categories: essays on the historical context of realism and naturalism by Louis Budd and Richard Lehan; essays on critical approaches to the movements since the early 1970s by Michael Anesko, essays on the efforts to expand the canon of realism and naturalism by Elizabeth Ammons; and a full-scale discussion of ten major texts, from W. D. Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham to Jack London's The Call of the Wild, by John W. Crowley, Tom Quirk, J. C. Levenson, Blanche Gelfant, Barbara Hochman, and Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin.

Demastes draws a distinction between the genus realism and its central species, naturalism. He studies, from an historical perspective, the growth of realism into the foremost aesthetic form in 20th century theater, and focuses on American playwrights who have used realism to challenge outdated and essentially naturalist thought, thereby infusing realism with fresh and contemporary perspectives of the world around them. Demastes analyzes the unique contributions of David Rabe, David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Charles Fuller, Beth Henley, and Marsha Norman, and assesses their overall critical reception. ISBN 0-313-26320-5: $35.95.

Using selections by American, British, French, German, Russian, Scandinavian, Spanish, Portuguese, and South American critics and authors, Professor Becker illustrates how realism arose as a reaction to romanticism, and how the practitioners of realism developed conflicting ideas about the means they should use and the ends toward which they should strive. The selections are concerned mainly with prose, since, according to the author, prose fiction has been the major vehicle of realism. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Borus (history, Colgate U.) traces the social and economic conditions that helped to produce American realism. Analyzing publishing records, personal correspondence, and essays, he shows how dramatic changes in the book market of the late nineteenth century required a redefinition of what a novel was, how it was written, on what basis the author engaged the audience, and what social role the author could play. Excellent notes and bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Literary Research and the American Realism and Naturalism Period: Strategies and Sources will help those interested in researching this era. Authors Linda L. Stein and Peter J. Lehu emphasize research methodology and outline the best practices for the research process, paying attention to the unique challenges inherent in conducting studies of national literature.

After its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, naturalism, a genre that typically depicts human beings as the product of biological and environmental forces over which they have little control, was supplanted by modernism, a genre in which writers experimented with innovations in form and content. In the last decade, the movement is again attracting spirited scholarly debate. The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism takes stock of the best new research in the field through collecting twenty-eight original essays drawing upon recent scholarship in literary and cultural studies. The contributors offer an authoritative and in-depth reassessment of writers from Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London to Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, John Steinbeck, Joyce Carol Oates, and Cormac McCarthy. One set of essays focus on the genre itself, exploring the historical contexts that gave birth to it, the problem of definition, its interconnections with other genres, the scientific and philosophical ideas that motivate naturalist authors, and the continuing presence of naturalism in twenty-first century fiction. Others examine the tensions within the genre-the role of women and African-American writers, depictions of sexuality, the problem of race, and the critique of commodity culture and class. A final set of essays looks beyond the works to consider the role of the marketplace in the development of naturalism, the popular and critical response to the works, and the influence of naturalism in the other arts.

Mark Twain is often pictured as a severe critic of religious piety, shaking his fist at God and mocking the devout. This book highlights Twain's attractions to and engagements with the variety of religious phenomena of America in his lifetime. It offers a more complicated understanding of Twain and his literary output.

The book collects Pizer’s late career essays on various writers and subjects related to American naturalism. Of these, two seek to describe the movement as a whole, six are on specific writers or works (with an emphasis on Theodore Dreiser), and two reprint informative interviews by Pizer on the subject. The essays reflect Pizer’s mature engagement of the subject he has spent a lifetime exploring.

This book traces the central developments in American literature between and 1919. It opens with an account of the consolidation of realism as the dominant standard of critical value and brings the reader forward to the moment, at the end of World War I, when American writers began to take a recognized place among the masters of literary modernism. The ascendancy of the novel as the principal genre of the realists is presented against a broader cultural and historical background. Professor Berthoff reviews and evaluates American fiction from the time when Howells, Twain, and Henry James were still under attack by old-school idealizers, to the emergence of a new critical and testamentary realism with Crane, Dreiser, and Gertrude Stein. He shows how the writers under discussion reacted to the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, to foreign literary currents, innovations in journalism, contemporary events, and to changing mores. Using specific examples and direct quotations, Professor Berthoff appraises the strengths and limitations of each. All his discussions, even of secondary writers, are rounded out with a wide range of critical opinion. This approach gives depth and objectivity to the examination of a turbulent and vigorously creative age in American letters. During this period the writings of Henry Adams, Henry George, William James, Thorstein Veblen, and others, though primarily concerned with disciplined reflective inquiry, were part of the essential imaginative effort of realism. The master works of this highly literate group of speculative thinkers had a profound effect on the literature of the era and on the era directly following. Important figures discussed in the final chapters of this history include Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Vachel Lindsay and Jack London. Professor Berthoff notes that there is no manifesto or turning point in literature exactly comparable to the turning point in American art created by the Armory Show of 1913. But the emergence in a single generation of Robinson, Frost, Stevens, Pound, Anderson, Stein, O'Neill, and Eliot was to have immense influence, not only in America but throughout the Western world. The thirty-five years that this book spans are among the most important and interesting in the history of American letters. The main currents traced are still vital, and the principal writers of this period are as important now as they were then.

A comprehensive, chronological overview of American literature in three scholarly and authoritative volumes A Companion to American Literature traces the history and development of American literature from its early origins in Native American oral tradition to 21st century digital literature. This comprehensive three-volume set brings together contributions from a diverse international team of accomplished young scholars and established figures in the field. Contributors explore a broad range of topics in historical, cultural, political, geographic, and technological contexts, engaging the work of both well-known and non-canonical writers of every period. Volume One is an inclusive and geographically expansive examination of early American literature, applying a range of cultural and historical approaches and theoretical models to a dramatically expanded canon of texts. Volume Two covers American literature between 1820 and 1914, focusing on the development of print culture and the literary marketplace, the emergence of various literary movements, and the impact of social and historical events on writers and writings of the period. Spanning the 20th and early 21st centuries, Volume Three studies traditional areas of American literature as well as the literature from previously marginalized groups and contemporary writers often overlooked by scholars. This inclusive and comprehensive study of American literature: Examines the influences of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and disability on American literature Discusses the role of technology in book production and circulation, the rise of literacy, and changing reading practices and literary forms Explores a wide range of writings in multiple genres, including novels, short stories, dramas, and a variety of poetic forms, as well as autobiographies, essays, lectures, diaries, journals, letters, sermons, histories, and graphic narratives. Provides a thematic index that groups chapters by contexts and illustrates their links across different traditional chronological boundaries A Companion to American Literature is a valuable resource for students coming to the subject for the first time or preparing for field examinations, instructors in American literature courses, and scholars with more specialized interests in specific authors, genres, movements, or periods.