Historical Guides to American Authors – serie

Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to working-class politics, race and slavery, sexual mores, the visual arts, and the idea of democracy. The poet who emerges from this volume is no "solitary singer", distanced from his culture, but what he himself called "the age transfigured", fully enmeshed in his times and addressing issues that are still vital today.

Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to working-class politics, race and slavery, sexual mores, the visual arts, and the idea of democracy. The poet who emerges from this volume is no "solitary singer," distanced from his culture, but what he himself called "the age transfigured," fully enmeshed in his times and addressing issues that are still vital today.

There is no question that Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) has maintained his place as one of the seminal figures in American history and literature. His poetic legacy, education ideals, and religious concepts are integral to the formation of American intellectual life, and scholarly interest in him continues unabated. Myerson has over the course of two decades made himself the most authoritative, respected, and prolific scholar working in this important period. His volume gathers essays that discuss biographical details of Emerson's life as well as women's rights, slavery, transcendentalism, and religion.

There is no question that Emerson has maintained his place as one of the seminal figures in American history and literature. In his time, he was the acknowledged leader of the Transcendentalist movement and his poetic legacy, education ideals, and religious concepts are integral to the formation of American intellectual life. In this volume, Joel Myerson, one of the leading experts on this period, has gathered together sparkling new essays that discuss Emerson as a product of his times. Individual chapters provide an extended biographical study of Emerson and his effect on American life, followed by studies of his concept of individualism, nature and natural science, religion, antislavery, and women's rights.

The New York City-born Henry James (1843-1916)-eminent novelist, amateur psychologist, inveterate bachelor-epitomizes, to many, the turn-of-the-century literary observer of social mores. His shrewd portraits of upper-class Anglo American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries distilled the differences between the Old World and the New, the rise of American entrepreneurship, and an aesthetically charged European sensibility. With fictional works like Washington Square, The Turn of the Screw, and The Portrait of a Lady, he displayed characters of great psychological depth, careful narrative detail, and distinctly vivid prose. With a brief biography, concise bibliographical essay, and six essays devoted to cultural context that defined him, A Historical Guide to Henry James offers an excellent primer to the author's fiction and the cultural milieu that influenced him.

The New York City-born Henry James (1843-1916)-eminent novelist, amateur psychologist, inveterate bachelor-epitomizes, to many, the turn-of-the-century literary observer of social mores. His shrewd portraits of upper-class Anglo American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries distilled the differences between the Old World and the New, the rise of American entrepreneurship, and an aesthetically charged European sensibility. With fictional works like Washington Square, The Turn of the Screw, and The Portrait of a Lady, he displayed characters of great psychological depth, careful narrative detail, and distinctly vivid prose. With a brief biography, concise bibliographical essay, and six essays devoted to cultural context that defined him, A Historical Guide to Henry James offers an excellent primer to the author's fiction and the cultural milieu that influenced him.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), son of itinerant actors, holds a secure place in the firmament of history as America's first master of suspense. Displaying scant interest in native scenes or materials, Edgar Allan Poe seems the most un-American of American writers during the era of literary nationalism; yet he was at the same time a pragmatic magazinist, fully engaged in popular culture and intensely concerned with the "republic of letters" in the United States. This Historical Guide contains an introduction that considers the tensions between Poe's "otherwordly" settings and his historically marked representations of violence, as well as a capsule biography situating Poe in his historical context. The subsequent essays in this book cover such topics as Poe and the American Publishing Industry, Poe's Sensationalism, his relationships to gender constructions, and Poe and American Privacy. The volume also includes a bibliographic essay, a chronology of Poe's life, a bibliography, illustrations, and an index.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), son of itinerant actors, holds a secure place in the firmament of history as America's first master of suspense. Displaying scant interest in native scenes or materials, Edgar Allan Poe seems the most un-American of American writers during the era of literary nationalism; yet he was at the same time a pragmatic magazinist, fully engaged in popular culture and intensely concerned with the "republic of letters" in the United States. This Historical Guide contains an introduction that considers the tensions between Poe's "otherwordly" settings and his historically marked representations of violence, as well as a capsule biography situating Poe in his historical context. The subsequent essays in this book cover such topics as Poe and the American Publishing Industry, Poe's Sensationalism, his relationships to gender constructions, and Poe and American Privacy. The volume also includes a bibliographic essay, a chronology of Poe's life, a bibliography, illustrations, and an index.

The 1999 centennial of Ernest Hemingway's birth marks a time for the reevaluation of his position as America's premier modernist writer. The previously unpublished essays in this collection plumb unexplored details of Hemingway's life to illuminate new and unexpected dimensions of the force of his literary accomplishments. The essays discuss biographical details of Hemingway's personal and professional life as well as describe the subleties of his character.

The 1999 Hemingway centennial marks the perfect time for the reevaluation of his position as America's premier modernist writer. These essays, all written specially for this collection, plumb unexplored historical details of Hemingway's life to illuminate new and often unexpected dimensions of the force of his literary accomplishment. Discussing biographical details of his personal and professional life along with the subtleties of his character, the text includes a number of fascinating photos and images.

Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most widely read and taught of American authors. This Historical Guide collects a number of original essays by Hawthorne scholars that place the author in historical context. Like other volumes in the series, A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne includes an introduction, a brief biography, a bibliographical essay, and an illustrated chronology of the author's life and times. Combining cultural criticism with historical scholarship, this volume addresses a wide range of topics relevant to Hawthorne's work, including his relationship to slavery, children, mesmerism, and the visual arts.

Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most widely read and taught of American authors. This Historical Guide collects a number of original essays by Hawthorne scholars that place the author in historical context. Like other volumes in the series, A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne includes an introduction, a brief biography, a bibliographical essay, and an illustrated chronology of the author's life and times. Combining cultural criticism with historical scholarship, this volume addresses a wide range of topics relevant to Hawthorne's work, including his relationship to slavery, children, mesmerism, and the visual arts.

Mark Twain remains to this day one of the most enduring and beloved of America's great writers. Combining cultural criticism with historical scholarship, A Historical Guide to Mark Twain addresses a wide range of topics relevant to Mark Twain's work including religion, commerce, race, gender, social class and imperialism. This volume also contains a introduction, a brief biography, a bibliographic essay, and an illustrated chronology of the author's life and times.

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton provides scholarly and general readers with historical contexts that illuminate Wharton's life and writing in new, exciting ways. The essays in this volume expand our sense of Wharton as a novelist of manners and reflect the latest developments in new historicism and cultural studies. Like many other literary women, Edith Wharton overcame prejudice to enter the world of letters. Wharton stood at the historical crossroads between the literary models of sentimental lady writer and modern professional author, and her work navigates accordingly between Victorian and modern sensibilities. Writing at a time of great social and economic change, Wharton records the changes brought about by Darwinism, urbanization, capitalism, feminism, world war, and eugenics, converying these cultural transformations with unforgettable detail and realism. This compelling collection of original essays illuminates Edith Wharton's vivid and incisive fiction against the backdrop of old New York, bringing one of our most important American novelists to life within the context of the society she so memorably chronicled and confronted.

Edith Wharton, arguably the most important American female novelist, stands at a particular historical crossroads between sentimental lady writer and modern professional author. Her ability to cope with this collision of Victorian and modern sensibilities makes her work especially interesting. Wharton also writes of American subjects at a time of great social and economic change-Darwinism, urbanization, capitalism, feminism, world war, and eugenics. She not only chronicles these changes in memorable detail, she sets them in perspective through her prodigious knowledge of history, philosophy, and religion. A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton provides scholarly and general readers with historical contexts that illuminate Wharton's life and writing in new, exciting ways. Essays in the volume expand our sense of Wharton as a novelist of manners and demonstrate her engagement with issues of her day.

As an essayist, philosopher, ex-pencil manufacturer, notorious hermit, tax protester, and all-around original thinker, Thoreau led so singular a life that he is in some ways a perfect candidate for the historical and biographical treatments made possible by the Historical Guides to American Authors series format. William E. Cain, the volume editor, includes contributions on his relationship with 19th century authority and concepts of the land, which should help the volume's reach beyond those who read Thoreau for illumination to those general readers who love him for embodying the spirit of American rebellion.

As an essayist, philosopher, ex-pencil manufacturer, notorious hermit, tax protester, and all-around original thinker, Thoreau led so singular a life that he is in some ways a perfect candidate for the historical and biographical treatments made possible by the Historical Guides to American Authors series format. William E. Cain, the volume editor, includes contributions on his relationship with 19th century authority and concepts of the land, which should help the volume's reach beyond those who read Thoreau for illumination to those general readers who love him for embodying the spirit of American rebellion.

This collection gathers together original essays dealing with Melville's relations with his historical era, with class, with the marketplace, with ethnic otherness, and with religion. These essays are framed by a new, short biography by Robert Milder, an introduction by Giles Gunn, an illustrated chronology, and a bibliographical essay. Taken together, these pieces afford a fresh and searching set of perspectives on Melville's connections both with his own age and also with our own. This book makes the case, as does no other collection of criticism of its size, for Melville's commanding centrality to nineteenth-century American writing.

Langston Hughes has been an inspiration to generations of readers and writers seeking a passionate, intelligent, and socially responsible art. In this volume, Steven C. Tracy has gathered a broad range of critics to produce an interdisciplinary approach to the important historical and cultural elements reflected in Hughes's work. Their essays, all previously unpublished, place Hughes in the context of Harlem, his preferred geographical and spiritual home base, as well as the larger political, social, musical, and artistic milieu of his rapidly changing times. They examine Hughes's negotiation of his own moral and ethical ground in a complex, sometimes hostile world, and demonstrate the remarkable triumph of a sensitive, creative human being who refused to be overwhelmed by the forces of discrimination, pessimism, and bitterness that claimed so many writers of his generation. This volume, with its historical essays, brief biography, and illustrated chronology, provides a concise yet authoritative portrait of one of America's and the world's most beloved writers.

One of America's most celebrated women, Emily Dickinson was virtually unpublished in her own time and unknown to the public at large. Today her poetry is commonly anthologized and widely praised for its precision, its intensity, its depth and beauty. Dickinson's life and work, however, remain in important ways mysterious. This collection of essays, all of them previously unpublished, represent the best of contemporary scholarship and points the way toward exciting new directions for the future. The volume includes a biographical essay that covers some of the major turning points in the poet's life, especially those emphasized by her letters. Other essays discuss Dickinson's religious beliefs, her response to the Civil War, her class-based politics, her place in a tradition of American women's poetry, and the editing of her manuscripts. A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson concludes with a rich bibliographical essay describing the controversial history of Dickinson's life in print, together with a substantial bibliography of relevant sources.

The essays in this collection treat the whole of Ralph Ellison's body of work, including his famous novel Invisible Man. The volume confronts Ellison the man of ideas, essayist, and short story writer, as well as the material in his posthumously published novel Juneteenth, in order to provide contemporary readers and critics with a comprehensive examination of Ellison.

Ralph Ellison has been a controversial figure, both lionized and vilified, since he seemed to burst fully formed on to the national literary scene in 1952 with the publication of Invisible Man. In this volume Steven C. Tracy has gathered a broad range of critics who look not only at Ellison's seminal novel but also at the fiction and nonfiction work that both preceded and followed it, focusing on important historical and cultural influences that help contextualize Ellison's thematic concerns and artistic aesthetic. These essays, all previously unpublished, explore how Ellison's various apprenciceships--in politics as a Black radical; in music as an admirer and practioner of European, American, and African-American music; and in literature as heir to his realist, naturalist, and modernist forebears--affected his mature literary productions, including his own careful molding of his literary reputation. They present us with a man negotiating the difficult sociopolitical, intellectual, and artistic terrain facing African Americans as America was increasingly forced to confront its own failures with regard to the promise of the American dream to its diverse populations. These wide-ranging historical essays, along with a brief biography and an illustrated chronology, provide a concise yet authoritative discussion of a twentieth-century American writer whose continued presence on the stage of American and world literature and culture is now assured.

Although perceived in his own day as a lightweight chronicler of 1920s trends and fads, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is now recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Whether for his classic novels (The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night), his frequently anthologized short stories ("Babylon Revisited," "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"), or his searing essays of personal examination (The Crack-Up), Fitzgerald is rightly celebrated as a master stylist who plumbs the depths of love, loss, and longing. Unfortunately, much of the interest in Fitzgerald has focused on biographical concerns, including his meteoric rise to fame, his tempestuous marriage to quintessential flapper Zelda Sayre, his rivalry with Ernest Hemingway, and his tragic descent into alcoholism and depression. The resulting, somewhat distorted, image of Fitzgerald has been that of as a self-destructive literary playboy. Even scholarly treatments of the author have tended to depict him as a mere spokesman for the Lost Generation, a symbol of the excesses of his era, without properly appreciating the range of his writing or his intellect. This volume of historically minded, newly commissioned essays looks beyond the Jazz Age façade to topics that reveal how Fitzgerald's work both illumines and challenges conceptions of his milieu. Studies of the literary marketplace of the 1920s, the influence of public intellectuals such as Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken, film and its treatment of the New Woman, and the aftereffects of World War I all document the depth and breadth of Fitzgerald's thinking.

A Historical Guide to James Fenimore Cooper features new critical essays by noted American literature scholars, Gerald Kennedy, John P. McWilliams, Dana Nelson, and Barbara Mann, as well as a brief biography by authorized Cooper biographer Wayne Franklin and a survey of Cooper scholarship and criticism and bibliography by Jeffrey Walker. Kennedy examines Cooper's five-volume Gleanings in Europe as the most ambitious effort by an antebellum American author to scrutinize the new nation from a critical, transnational perspective. McWilliams challenges the critical and scholarly neglect of Cooper's women, by analyzing the four Revolutionary War novels in which young women play critical roles in furthering political debates about loyalty, independence and family upon which America's new republican culture depends. Examining the five Leatherstocking novels, Nelson shows how groupings of male and female characters across lines of class, habitude and race foreground the problems of creating new identities that can support the democratic aims of the early United States. Mann defends Cooper from nineteenth-century as well as twentieth-century attacks that he was a "race traitor" and argues provocatively that Natty Bumppo is a mixed-race character. Wayne Franklin offers a preview of his forthcoming two-volume biography of Cooper. Editor Leland S. Person provides an introduction and an illustrated chronology of Cooper's life and nineteenth-century historical events.

With contributions from major scholars of African American literature, history, and cultural studies, A Historical Guide to James Baldwin focuses on the four tumultous decades that defined the great author's life and art. Providing a comprehensive examination of Baldwin's varied body of work that includes short stories, novels, and polemical essays, this collection reflects the major events that left an indelible imprint on the iconic writer: civil rights, black nationalism and the struggle for gay rights in the pre- and post-Stonewall eras. The essays will also highlight Baldwin's under-studied role as a trans-Atlantic writer, his lifelong struggle with faith, and his use of music, especially the blues, as a key to unlock the mysteries of his identity as an exile, an artist, and a black American in a racially hostile era.