ABSTRACT

A collection of prefaces, reviews and articles by Americans on American and European fiction. Charted in these three volumes, which span 1776 to 1900, is the movement from anxious defences of the novel as a necessary vehicle of truth and morality to fully-fledged theoretical exfoliations.

chapter 1|13 pages

Early American Novelists

chapter 2|10 pages

New American Novels

chapter 3|8 pages

Have We a Novelist?

chapter 4|2 pages

Bret Harte and the Critics

chapter 5|2 pages

Decline of the Atlantic

chapter 6|2 pages

The Value of Novels

chapter 7|2 pages

Southern Novels

chapter 8|12 pages

Sectional Fiction

chapter 9|9 pages

Sir Walter Scott

chapter 10|7 pages

Zola's Last Novel

chapter 11|2 pages

Death of American Literature

chapter 12|3 pages

A Southern Magazine

chapter 14|2 pages

Mothers in American Novels

chapter 15|10 pages

William Dean Howells

chapter 16|3 pages

Preface to Hot Plowshares

chapter 17|3 pages

A Romantic Conundrum

chapter 18|3 pages

Judge McGloin's New Book

chapter 19|2 pages

Realistic Fiction

chapter 20|2 pages

Novelists and Novels

chapter 21|2 pages

Two Southern Novelists

chapter 24|13 pages

Modern Fiction

chapter 25|3 pages

Southern Literature

chapter 26|3 pages

A Novel Novel

chapter 28|4 pages

Mark Twain on the Mississippi

chapter 29|3 pages

Magazine Mysteries

chapter 30|3 pages

Latterday Reviews

chapter 31|11 pages

The American Element in Fiction

chapter 32|2 pages

Dime-Novel Wickedness

chapter 33|3 pages

The Valley of Unrest

chapter 34|3 pages

Authors and Success

chapter 35|4 pages

Mr. Cable's Dr. Sevier

chapter 36|5 pages

Novel-Writing as a Science

chapter 39|2 pages

Talent and Genius

chapter 40|3 pages

Sins of Genius

chapter 41|2 pages

Books and Reviews

chapter 42|2 pages

Pictures Vs. Texts

chapter 43|2 pages

Eternal Literature

chapter 44|2 pages

Journalism and Magazine Work

chapter 45|2 pages

One of Mr. Howells' Realisms

chapter 46|2 pages

The Questioning of Genius

chapter 47|2 pages

The Spiritual Sense in Literature

chapter 48|2 pages

Howells on Critics

chapter 50|5 pages

Charles Brockden Brown

chapter 51|7 pages

American Literature

chapter 53|7 pages

Our Unclean Fiction

chapter 54|16 pages

Woman in American Literature

chapter 55|11 pages

Mr. Howells's Latest Novels

chapter 57|10 pages

Married Women in Fiction

chapter 58|7 pages

Literary Centres

chapter 59|6 pages

Literary Prophecy

chapter 60|4 pages

The Local Novel

chapter 61|6 pages

Provincialism

chapter 64|8 pages

The Novel-Reading Habit