ABSTRACT
The development of a mass readership, a mass market for books, and a prominent status of reading and readers is reflected in the central role of literacy, reading, and books in the lives of protagonists in nineteenth-century American and French literature. In this book, Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau examines the destabilizing role of reading in the works of Frederick Douglass, Horatio Alger, Emile Zola, Louisa May Alcott, and Gustave Flaubert. This book-the first to study nineteenth-century protagonists across lines of nationality, class, and gender-demonstrates the empowering effects of reading for Douglass, Alger's Ragged Dick, Zola's Etienne, Alcott's Jo, and Flaubert's Emma.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 2|10 pages
“The Pathway from Slavery to Freedom”: Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of
chapter 6|28 pages
The Demonic Underneath the Angelic Little Woman: Louisa May
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
