List of Illustrations viii Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgments xvi Introduction 1 Shirley Samuels PART I Historical and Cultural Contexts 5 1 National Narrative and the Problem of American Nationhood 7 J. Gerald Kennedy 2 Fiction and Democracy 20 Paul Downes 3 Democratic Fictions 31 Sandra M. Gustafson 4 Engendering American Fictions 40 Martha J. Cutter and Caroline F. Levander 5 Race and Ethnicity 52 Robert S. Levine 6 Class 64 Philip Gould 7 Sexualities 75 Valerie Rohy 8 Religion 87 Paul Gutjahr 9 Education and Polemic 97 Stephanie Foote 10 Marriage and Contract 108 Naomi Morgenstern 11 Transatlantic Ventures 119 Wil Verhoeven and Stephen Shapiro 12 Other Languages, Other Americas 131 Kirsten Silva Gruesz PART II Forms of Fiction 145 13 Literary Histories 147 Michael Drexler and Ed White 14 Breeding and Reading: Chesterfieldian Civility in the Early Republic 158 Christopher Lukasik 15 The American Gothic 168 Marianne Noble 16 Sensational Fiction 179 Shelley Streeby 17 Melodrama and American Fiction 191 Lori Merish 18 Delicate Boundaries: Passing and Other ‘‘Crossings’’ in Fictionalized Slave Narratives 204 Cherene Sherrard-Johnson 19 Doctors, Bodies, and Fiction 216 Stephanie P. Browner 20 Law and the American Novel 228 Laura H. Korobkin 21 Labor and Fiction 239 Cindy Weinstein 22 Words for Children 249 Carol J. Singley 23 Dime Novels 262 Colin T. Ramsey and Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola 24 Reform and Antebellum Fiction 274 Chris Castiglia PART III Authors, Locations, Purposes 285 25 The Problem of the City 287 Heather Roberts 26 New Landscapes 301 Timothy Sweet 27 The Gothic Meets Sensation: Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, George Lippard, and E. D. E. N. Southworth 314 Dana Luciano 28 Retold Legends: Washington Irving, James Kirke Paulding, and John Pendleton Kennedy 330 Philip Barnard 29 Captivity and Freedom: Ann Eliza Bleecker, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and Washington Irving’s ‘‘Rip Van Winkle’’ 342 Eric Gary Anderson 30 New England Tales: Catharine Sedgwick, Catherine Brown, and the Dislocations of Indian Land 353 Bethany Schneider 31 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Caroline Lee Hentz, Herman Melville, and American Racialist Exceptionalism 365 Katherine Adams 32 Fictions of the South: Southern Portraits of Slavery 378 Nancy Buffington 33 The West 388 Edward Watts 34 The Old Southwest: Mike Fink, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Johnson Jones Hooper, and George Washington Harris 400 David Rachels 35 James Fenimore Cooper and the Invention of the American Novel 411 Wayne Franklin 36 The Sea: Herman Melville and Moby-Dick 425 Stephanie A. Smith 37 National Narrative and National History 434 Russ Castronovo Index 445

A Companion to American Fiction 1780–1865 presents current critical responses to the broad range of American fiction written from the earliest declarations of nationhood to secession and civil war. The volume features contributions from over 35 leading international critics and scholars, who offer a cultural and historical context that serves to illuminate the fiction. The Companion covers both less well-known writers, such as Lydia Maria Child and George Lippard, and canonical authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Contributors demonstrate how these authors present conflicts about territory and sovereignty and questions of gender, race, ethnicity, and identity.