Literary Criticism, US

Reimagining Realism
A New Anthology of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century American Short Fiction
Edited by Charles A. Johanningsmeier and Jessica E. McCarthy

This fresh, diverse anthology of American short fiction challenges readers to interrogate commonly held ideas about the genres of realism and naturalism. Little-known writers and crucial voices from underrepresented groups join stalwarts such as Stephen Crane, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mark Twain to offer a more inclusive perspective on American history and culture from the Civil War through World War I.

A Companion to the Works of Elizabeth Strout
By Katherine Montwieler

In this first study of novelist Elizabeth Strout’s best-selling works, Katherine Montwieler reveals how Strout’s voice, characters, and themes generate a powerful empathic response among mainstream readers—mostly women—that elite scholars undervalue at their own peril. This accessible companion also includes an exclusive interview with Strout.

Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction
By Grażyna J. Kozaczka

Through close readings of several Polish American and Polish Canadian novels and short stories published over the last seven decades, Kozaczka demonstrates how Polish American women writers have acknowledged their patriarchal oppression and tells the complex story of how they sought empowerment through resistive and transgressive behaviors.

Lyrical Liberators
The American Antislavery Movement in Verse, 1831–1865
Edited by Monica Pelaez

Before Black Lives Matter and Hamilton, there were abolitionist poets. In Lyrical Liberators, Monica Pelaez draws on unprecedented archival research to recover, collect, and annotate works by critically acclaimed writers, commercially successful scribes, and minority voices including those of African Americans and women.

Writing an Icon
Celebrity Culture and the Invention of Anaïs Nin
By Anita Jarczok

Before Madonna and her many imitators, there was Anaïs Nin, the diarist, novelist, and provocateur. Jarczok reveals how Nin crafted her personae, which she rewrote and restyled to suit her needs, and how she occupied a singular space in 20th-century culture, as a literary figure, a voice of female sexual liberation, and a celebrity.

The Message of the City
Dawn Powell’s New York Novels, 1925–1962
By Patricia E. Palermo

Dawn Powell was a gifted satirist who moved in the same circles as Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, renowned editor Maxwell Perkins, and other midcentury New York luminaries. Her many novels are typically divided into two groups: those dealing with her native Ohio and those set in New York.

Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment
Appalachian Women’s Literacies
By Erica Abrams Locklear

Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment blends literacy studies with literary criticism to analyze the central female characters in the works of Harriette Simpson Arnow, Linda Scott DeRosier, Denise Giardina, and Lee Smith.

Lit from Within
Contemporary Masters on the Art and Craft of Writing
Edited by Kevin Haworth and Dinty W. Moore

Lit from Within offers creative writers a window into the minds of some of America’s most celebrated contemporary authors. Witty, direct, and thought–provoking, these essays offer something to creative writers of all backgrounds and experience. With contributions from fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers, this is a collection of unusual breadth and quality.Contributors:

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A Dual-Text Critical Edition
Edited by Shawn St. Jean

Scholars have argued for decades over which constitutes the best possible version of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s frequently anthologized story “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”Most editions have been based on the 1892 New England Magazine publication rather than the handwritten manuscript at Radcliffe College. Publication of the unedited manuscript in 1994 sparked controversy over which of the two was definitive.

Reworlding America
Myth, History, and Narrative
By John Muthyala

John Muthyala’s Reworlding America moves beyond the U.S.-centered approach of traditional American literary criticism. In this groundbreaking book, Muthyala argues for a transgeographical perspective from which to study the literary and cultural histories of the Americas.By

The Midwestern Pastoral
Place and Landscape in Literature of the American Heartland
By William Barillas

The midwestern pastoral is a literary tradition of place and rural experience that celebrates an attachment to land that is mystical as well as practical. It is exemplified in the poetry, fiction, and essays of writers who express an informed love of the nature and regional landscapes of the Midwest.

Zane Grey
Romancing the West
By Stephen J. May

One of the century’s most enduring American writers, Zane Grey left a legacy to our national consciousness that far outstrips the literary contribution of his often predictable plots and recurring themes. How did Grey capture the attention of millions of readers and promote the Western fantasy that continues to occupy many of the world’s leisure hours? This study assesses the Zane Grey phenomenon by examining Grey’s romantic novels in the context of his life and era.Grey,

The Absent Man
The Narrative Craft of Charles W. Chesnutt
By Charles Duncan

As the first African-American fiction writer to achieve a national reputation, Ohio native Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932) in many ways established the terms of the black literary tradition now exemplified by such writers as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Charles Johnson.Following

An American Vein
Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature
Edited by Danny L. Miller, Sharon Hatfield, and Gurney Norman

An American Vein is an anthology of literary criticism of Appalachian novelists, poets, and playwrights. The book reprises critical writing of influential authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Cratis Williams, and Jim Wayne Miller. It introduces new writing by Rodger Cunningham, Elizabeth Engelhardt, and others.

Word Rides Again
Rereading The Frontier In American Fiction
By J. David Stevens

With much recent scholarship polarizing frontier novels into “popular” and “literary” camps, The Word Rides Again challenges the critical orthodoxy that such works have little in common, arguing instead that formulaic Western fictions can subtly (and even subversively) share cultural concerns with more highbrow brethren.