The Cambridge History of the American Novel [Hardcover]

Leonard Cassuto (Editor), Clare Virginia Eby (Editor), Benjamin Reiss (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2011 | ISBN-10: 9780521899079 | ISBN-13: 978-0521899079

This ambitious literary history traces the American novel from its emergence in the late eighteenth century to its diverse incarnations in the multi-ethnic, multi-media culture of the present day. In a set of original essays by renowned scholars from all over the world, the volume extends important critical debates and frames new ones. Offering new views of American classics, it also breaks new ground to show the role of popular genres - such as science fiction and mystery novels - in the creation of the literary tradition. One of the original features of this book is the dialogue between the essays, highlighting cross-currents between authors and their works as well as across historical periods. While offering a narrative of the development of the genre, the History reflects the multiple methodologies that have informed readings of the American novel and will change the way scholars and readers think about American literary history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'... an innovative approach that is bound to prove as stimulating as the best of American fiction already does.' Contemporary Review

Book Description

This state-of-the-art literary history of the American novel, from the late eighteenth century to the modern day, presents original essays by renowned scholars from all over the world. Together they form a chronological narrative offering updated views on classics while also introducing new views, new categories, and a new format.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1272 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780521899079
• ISBN-13: 978-0521899079
• ASIN: 0521899079
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 2.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Leonard Cassuto is the author of Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories, which was nominated for the Edgar and Macavity Awards and named one of the Ten Best Books of 2008 in the crime and mystery category by the Los Angeles Times. His other books include The Inhuman Race: The Racial Grotesque In American Literature and Culture (Columbia, 1997) and five edited volumes, including two that are newly published in 2011: The Cambridge Companion to Baseball and the Cambridge History of the American Novel (of which he is General Editor). Cassuto is also an award-winning journalist and author of "The Graduate Advisor," a monthly column in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

website: www.lcassuto.com

author video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlAuc_pTbZk

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Big-Hearted Beast October 5, 2011

By R. M. M.

Format:Hardcover

Any history of the American novel must be incomplete; editors must decide among myriad strategies for narrowing the discussion. The traditional model gathers a small pantheon of "great books" and issues pronouncements on their significance as pillars of Culture. The editors of The Cambridge History of the American Novel wisely eschew this model as too confining and seek to display the mind-bogglingly vast array of themes, contexts, sub-genres, and critical approaches and, in so doing, illustrate the tantalizing complexity of the American novel. This approach is also incomplete, but the editors chose to see their volume as part of an ongoing conversation about the novel rather than as a restrictive final word. To this end, they did two very important things, one organizational and one compositional. The authors of the various chapters did not operate in a vacuum but consulted each other when their respective areas touched. The editors then organized the chapters both chronologically and thematically, which provides even a casual reader with a good sense of how different themes, attitudes, and sub-genres (such as the sea novel or the western) grew, responded to each other, and either survived or died out. The volume thus becomes a sort of hypertextual web of ideas rather than an oversimplified monograph. Because yesterday's genre fiction might be today's canonical masterpiece (see the sea novel and cross reference Herman Melville), the editors realized that crime fiction, science fiction, and the graphic novel are important parts of the protean pageant of American fiction and included chapters about them.

Because of these editorial choices and more, this volume has already received critical condemnation by no less an arbiter of American letters than The Wall Street Journal. According to Joseph Epstein, and the others who have joined the scrum, this volume has contributed to the death of American literature (a fate that will be news to my students). To these meager souls, only certain books should be studied, and they should only be studied in very restricted ways. The American Novel, though, is a huge, shambling, rough, but ultimately big-hearted beast that can accommodate both the small-mind and the expansive, the parochial and the universal. The editors and writers of The Cambridge History of the American Novel recognize this and celebrate it.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive reference book for scholars/enthusiasts of American Lit. November 2, 2011

By J M Manta

Format:Hardcover

I recently received my copy of this new collection and I'm please to report that it is quite possibly THE definitive work on American Literature of the 21st century. I'm a graduate student in English Literature and over the past few months this book has proved invaluable. It's a pretty expensive book (but to be fair, not much more than a college Physics textbook), so I'd caution against purchasing it unless you plan to use it regularly.

It should be noted that this book is published primarily for members of the academic community. Cambridge University Press is an academic publisher, they DO NOT publish trade books for general audiences. As is the case with any academic community, literary scholars are mostly speaking to each other and this may come across as somewhat insular, as well as stylistically formal or erudite, to the casual or lay reader. Historians, scholars, and committed enthusiasts, on the other hand, will find very much to like in this monumental work.

I really think Amazon should disallow reviews by people (see rwx) who have not read the book, and from the looks of it, never would have even if they had not been deterred by a reactionary, self-righteous and ill-informed WSJ review. Because of this precedent, I too must take issue with the elephant in the room. In his article, Joseph Epstein positions himself with the authority of someone who "has taught" at a university. While he may have worked as an instructor, his article makes clear that he is not, and never has been, a literary scholar. This may explain his remarkable conflation of issues concerning literary "history" with overtly aesthetic concerns. By doing so, Epstein creates a straw man argument, attacking a book for something it was never meant to be. It may be that Epstein simply wanted a new excuse to rant against leftists in academia (does it ever get old, WSJ?). But I suspect that the unrelenting semantic and conceptual slippage with which his writing is fraught is actually evidence of the dubious, inadequate education he clearly must have received as an English major during those lost "golden days" of English Literature instruction. We can all be thankful, then, that academic disciplines are not static but are instead dynamic institutions with the ability to adapt, grow, and change for the better.

6 of 60 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Read Epstein's "Who Killed American Lit" August 28, 2011

By rwx

Format:Hardcover

Read Epstein's "Who Killed American Lit" in the Wall Street Journal (available on the net). The book contains politically correct trash that epitomizes what's wrong with present-day teaching of literature.

I have seen academia from the inside and I KNOW that it's even worse than described in Epstein's review of this particular book's treasury of politically-correct bigotry.