A Companion to American Fiction 1865‐1914

The period between the end of the Civil War and the onset of the Great War in Europe saw a rich diversity of creative writing in the USA. Massive increases in population and urbanisation, together with accelerated industrialisation and continuing immigration, created tumultuous, and sometimes violent, social change. With this collection of 29 new essays, the editors, both professors of literature at Purdue University, Indiana, have attempted an overview of the fiction produced over that half century. Lamb and Thompson claim that “there is no other such comprehensive and multi‐faceted collection on the period”. This is no idle boast, as...