Americans on Fiction, 1776-1900

Peter Rawlings is at the University of the West of England. He is Editor of American Writers on Shakespeare, 1776-1914 (1999) Ashgate Press

'This painstakingly annotated collection offers the reader a marvellous array of instances of literary bickering, regional and gender conflict, concerns with national identity, and flashes of genuine insight. A must for all libraries.' Journal of American Studies 'To read this collection of essays, reviews and authorial prefaces is to have the pleasure of listening in no a series of American conversations about fiction during the first century and a quarter of the country's development ... an essential addition to any reference library.' Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association

• Volume 1 William Hill Brown, 'Preface' The Power of Sympathy (1789); Susanna Haswell Rowson, 'Preface' Charlotte: A Tale of Truth (1791); Charles Brockden Brown: 'Advertisement' Wieland (1798); 'To the Public' Edgar Huntly (1799); 'The Difference Between History and Romance' Monthly Magazine (1800); 'Novel Reading' Literary Magazine (1804); Carolina Matilda Warren, 'Preface' The Gamesters; or, Ruins of Innocence (1805); Charles Brockden Brown, 'On the Cause of the Popularity of Novels' Literary Magazine (1807); Edward Tyrell Channing: 'American Language and Literature' North American Review (1815); 'Reflections on the Literary Delinquency of America' North American Review (1815); 'Brown's Life and Writings' North American Review (1819); James Kirke Paulding, 'National Literature' Salmagundi (1820); W H Gardiner, 'The Spy' North American Review (1822); James McHenry, 'Preface' The Spectre of the Forest (1823); W H Gardiner, 'The Wilderness' North American Review (1824); William Cullen Bryant, 'Redwood' North American Review (1825); William Gilmore Simms, '[American Fiction]' Southern Quarterly Gazette (1828); Isaac Appleton Jewett, 'Themes for Western Fiction' Western Monthly Magazine (1833); Daniel Drake, Discourse on the West (1834); James Ewell Heath, 'Southern Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1834); H J Groesbeck, 'American Literature: Its Impediments' Southern Literary Messenger (1835); James Mercer Garnett, 'Abuses of Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1837); Anon 'Biographical Sketch of James Fenimore Cooper' Southern Literary Messenger (1838); B 'Literature of Virginia' Southern Literary Messenger (1838); George Tucker, 'A Discourse on American Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1838); Orestes Brownson, 'American Literature' (1839); A Virginian Gentleman 'Confessions of a Novel Reader' Southern Literary Messenger (1839); Anon 'The Inferiority of American Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1840); Edwin De Leon, 'Modern Fiction' Southern Literary Messenger (1842); Edgar Allan Poe, 'Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales' (1842); William Gilmore Simms, 'Cooper, His Genius and Writings' Magnolia (1842); Edwin De Leon, 'Cheap Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1844); A Friend to Literature, 'A Native Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1844); E A D, 'Literary Prospects for 1845' American Whig Review (1845); William Cowper Scott, 'American Literature: The Present State of American Letters; The Prospect and Means of Their Improvement' Southern Literary Messenger (1845); Il Secretario, 'American Letters-Their Character and Advancement' American Whig Review (1845); William Gilmore Simms, 'Americanism in Literature: An Oration Before the Phi Kappa and Desmothean Societies of the University of Georgia, at Athens, August 8, 1844. By Alexander B Meek, of Alabama. Charleston: Burges & James. 1844' Southern and Western Magazine (1845); Cornelius Matthews, 'National Literature' United States Magazine (1847); Anon 'Charles Brockden Brown' American Whig Review (1848); Philip Pendleton Cooke, 'Edgar A Poe: His Literary Merits Considered' Southern Literary Messenger (1848); James Russell Lowell, 'Kavanagh' North American Review (1849); John Reuben Thompson, 'The Late Edgar Allen Poe' Southern Literary Messenger (1849); Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Hawthorne and His Mosses' Literary World (1850) Volume 2 Anon: 'The Evening Book; or, Fireside Talk on Morals and Manners, With Sketches of Western Life. Mrs Kirkland' American Whig Review (1851); 'The Moral and the Artistic in Prose Fiction' American Whig Review (1851); 'Nathaniel Hawthorne' International Magazine (1851); W D, 'Imagination and Fact' American Whig Review (1851); H T Tuckerman, 'Nathaniel Hawthorne' Southern Literary Messenger (1851); Anon: 'Anglo-American Literature and Manners' International Magazine (1852); 'The Blithedale Romance' American Whig Review (1852); 'Pierre, or the Ambiguities' American Whig Review (1852); P 'William Gilmore Simms, LLD' International Magazine (1852); George Frederick Holmes, 'A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin' Southern Literary Messenger (1853); William Gilmore Simms: 'Preface' The Yemassee (1853); Anon: 'Novels--Their Meaning and Mission' Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1854); 'An Inquiry into the Present State of Southern Literature' Southern Literary Messenger (1856); 'A Perceptible Falling Off of 'Sensation Books'--What Is Likely to Take Their Place?' Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1856); George W Curtis, 'Portrait of Sir Walter Scott' Southern Literary Messenger (1856); William Gilmore Simms, 'Preface' Richard Hurdis (1856); A W R 'The Duty of Southern Authors' Southern Literary Messenger (1856); Anon: 'Ideals in Modern Fiction' Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1857); 'Southern Literature' Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1857); John S Hart, Extract from The Female Prose Writers of America (1857); Ignatius 'Matter of Fact and Matter of Fiction' Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1857); Anon 'James Fenimore Cooper' North American Review (1859); Henry Theodore Tuckerman, 'Balzac' Southern Literary Messenger (1859); James Russell Lowell, 'The Marble Faun' Atlantic Monthly (1860); E P Whipple, 'Nathaniel Hawthorne' Atlantic Monthly (1860); G S Hillard, 'James Fenimore Cooper' Atlantic Monthly (1862); Samuel B Davies, 'Observations of Our Literary Prospects' Southern Literary Messenger (1863); Orestes Brownson, 'American Literature' Brownson's Quarterly Review (1864); Samuel D Davies, 'Novels and Novel Writing' Southern Literary Messenger (1864); Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'Hawthorne' Atlantic Monthly (1864); Henry James, 'The Novels of George Eliot' Atlantic Monthly (1866); Eugene Benson: 'American Literature' Nation (1868); 'Poe and Hawthorne' Galaxy (1868); J W De Forest, 'The Great American Novel' Nation (1868); E P Peabody, 'The Genius of Hawthorne' Atlantic Monthly (1868); T W Higginson, 'Americanism in Literature' Atlantic Monthly (1870); Henry Ware, 'Nathaniel Hawthorne' Appleton's Journal (1870); Thomas Sergeant Perry, 'American Novels' North American Review (1872); R H Stoddard, 'Nathaniel Hawthorne' Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1872); G L Ferris, 'Mark Twain' Appleton's Journal (1874); G P Lathrop: 'Growth of the Novel' Atlantic Monthly (1874); 'The Novel and Its Future' Atlantic Monthly (1874); Thomas Sergeant Perry, 'Ivan Turgenieff' Atlantic Monthly (1874) Volume 3 Edward L Burlingame, 'New American Novels' North American Review (1877); Anon 'Have We a Novelist?' Catholic World (1878); Lafcadio Hearn: 'Bret Harte and the Critics' Item (1878); 'Decline of the Atlantic' Item (1878); Clara Barnes Martin, 'Emile Zola As Critic' Atlantic Monthly (1879); H W P, 'Recent American Novels' Atlantic Monthly (1879); Lafcadio Hearn: 'The Value of Novels' Item (1879); 'Southern Novels' Item (1879); C H Jones, 'Sectional Fiction' Appleton's Journal (1880); Thomas Sergeant Perry, 'Sir Walter Scott' Atlantic Monthly (1880); 'Some Recent Novels' Atlantic Monthly (1880); 'Zola's Last Novel' Atlantic Monthly (1880); Edmund Clarence Stedman, 'Edgar Allan Poe' Scribner's Monthly (1880); Lafcadio Hearn: 'Death of American Literature' Item (1880); 'A Southern Magazine' Item (1881); Anon: 'Bret Harte's Collected Works' Century (1882); 'Mark Twain's 'The Prince and the Pauper" Century (1882); 'Miss Woolson's Anne' Century (1882); 'The Portrait of a Lady and Dr Breen's Practice' Atlantic Monthly (1882); L M Bedinger, 'Mothers in American Novels' Century (1882); W D Howells, 'Mark Twain' Century (1882); Thomas Sergeant Perry, 'William Dean Howells' Century (1882); Albion W Tourgee, 'Preface' Hot Ploughshares (1882); Lafcadio Hearn: 'A Romantic Conundrum' Times-Democrat (1882); 'Judge McGloin's New Book' Times-Democrat (1882); 'Realistic Fiction' Times-Democrat (1882); 'Novelists and Novels' Times-Democrat (1882); H C Bunner, 'New York As a Field for Fiction' Century (1883); T B Dorsey, 'Two Southern Novelists' Century (1883); James Herbert Morse: 'The Native Element in American Fiction' Century (1883); 'The Native Element in American Fiction Since the War' Century (1883); H E S, 'Recent American Fiction' Atlantic Monthly (1883); Charles Dudley Warner: 'American Novels' Quarterly Review (1883); 'Modern Fiction' Atlantic Monthly (1883); Lafcadio Hearn, 'Southern Literature' Times-Democrat (1883); 'A Novel Novel' Times-Democrat (1883); 'Southern Literature and "Observer"' Times-Democrat (1883); 'Mark Twain on the Mississippi' Times-Democrat (1883); 'Magazine Mysteries' Times-Democrat (1883); 'Latterday Reviews' Times-Democrat (1883); William Henry Bishop, 'New York As a Field for Fiction' Century (1884); A J Faust, 'Two New Novelists' Catholic World (1884); Julian Hawthorne, 'The American Element in Fiction' North American Review (1884); G P Lathrop, 'Recent American Fiction' Atlantic Monthly (1884); Lafcadio Hearn: 'Dime-Novel Wickedness' Times-Democrat (1884); 'The Valley of Unrest' Times-Democrat (1884); 'Authors and Success' Times-Democrat (1884); 'Mr Cable's 'Dr. Sevier' Times-Democrat (1884); R P, 'Novel-Writing as a Science' Catholic World (1885); Thomas Sergeant Perry, 'Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn' Century (1885); Hjalmar Boyesen, 'Why We Have No Great Novelists' Forum (1886); Julian Hawthorne, 'Hawthorne's Philosophy' Century (1886); 'Problems of the Scarlet Letter' Atlantic Monthly (1886); Lafcadio Hearn: 'Talent and Genius' Times-Democrat (1886); 'Sins of Genius' Times-Democrat (1886); 'Books and Reviews' Times-Democrat (1886); 'Pictures Vs. Texts' Times-Democrat (1886); 'Eternal Literature' Times-Democrat (1886); 'Journalism and Magazine Work' Times-Democrat (1887); 'One of Mr Howells's Realisms' Times-Democrat (1887); 'The Questioning of Genius' Times-Democrat (1887); 'The Spiritual Sense in Literature' Times-Democrat (1887); 'Howells on Critics' Times-Democrat (1887); G E Woodberry, 'Charles Brockden Brown' Atlantic Monthly (1888); Henry A Beers, 'American Literature' Century (1889); Brander Matthews, 'The Centenary of James Fenimore Cooper' Century (1889); Joshua W Caldwell, 'Our Unclean Fiction' New England Magazine (1890); Helen Gray Cone, 'Woman in American Literature' Century (1890); Hamlin Garland: 'Howells Latest Novels' New England Magazine (1890); Charles Dudley Warner, 'The Novel and the Common School' Atlantic Monthly (1890); M W Hazeltine, 'Married Women in Fiction' North American Review (1891); Josephine Lazarus, 'Louisa May Alcott' Century (1891); Brander Matthews, 'American Fiction' Cosmopolitan (1891); Anon 'American Fiction' Nation (1892); H H Boyesen, 'The Progressive Realism of American Fiction' Independent (1892); Richard Hovey, 'American Fiction' Independent (1892); Hamlin Garland, 'The Local Novel' Crumbling Idols: Twelve Essays on Art Dealing Chiefly With Literature, Painting, and the Drama (1894); 'Productive Conditions of American Literature' Forum (1894); 'Provincialism' Crumbling Idols...(1894); Mark Twain, 'What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us' North American Review (1895); Joseph H Twichell, 'Mark Twain' Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1896); James Lane Allen, 'Two Principles in Recent American Fiction' Atlantic Monthly (1897); Paul Leicester Ford, 'The American Historical Novel' Atlantic Monthly (1897); Frank Norris, 'American Fiction' Wave (1897); Charles Miner Thompson, 'Mark Twain As an Interpreter of American Character' Atlantic Monthly (1897); George Clarke, 'The Novel-Reading Habit' Arena (1898); Charles Johnston, 'The True American Spirit in Literature' Atlantic Monthly (1899); Annie Steger Winston, 'America As a Field for Fiction' Arena (1900)