3 Review(s)

In the aftermath of America's centennial celebrations of 1876, readers developed an appetite for chronicles of the nation's past. Born amid this national vogue, the field of American literary history was touted as the balm for numerous "ills"- from burgeoning immigration to American anti-intellectualism to demanding university administrators-and enjoyed immense poplarity between 1880 and 1910. In the first major analysis of the field's early decades, claudia Stokes offers important insights into the practices, beliefs, and values that shaped the emerging discipline and have continued to shape it for the last century. She considers particular personalities-including Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William Dean Howells, Brander Matthews, and Mark Twain-and episodes that had a foramtive effect on American literary history as a discipline. About Author : Claudia Stokes is assistant professor of English at Trinity University in San Antonio. She is coeditor of American Literary Studies: A Methodological Reader. Contents : Acknowledgments Introduction Part I The Lay of the Land: Nation and the Responsibilities of Literary History A Culture of Retrospection: The Rise of Literary History in the Late Nineteenth Century Preservation and Assimilation: Brander Matthews and the Silencesof Literary History Part II Class, Authority, and Literary History Copyrighting American History: International Copyright and the Periodization of the Nineteenth Century A Higher Function: Literary History and the Advent of Professionalism Rancor's Remains: Barrett Wendell and the New England Renaissance Epilogue: Relevance and Its Discontents Notes Index