Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The American Historical Romance is the richest, most fully meditated and most rewarding yet written by this author who has been a pioneer...No devotee of the American novel will ignore it." Howard Erskine-Hill, Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
This book traces the tradition of American historical fiction from its origins in the early nineteenth century to the eve of World War II. However, although inevitably much concerned with the theory of genre and with the specific contents of the genre of historical romance, Professor Dekker devotes most of his book to new readings of major texts by James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Allen Tate, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and William Faulkner, as well as to the Briton whose name was synonymous with the genre for most of the nineteenth century - Sir Walter Scott. 'The American Historical Romance is the richest, most fully meditated and most rewarding yet written by this author ... It is the most important book on the relations of British and American fiction to come out for many years. No devotee of the American novel will ignore it.' -- The Times Literary Supplement
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. the American historical romance: a prospectus; 2. The Waverley-model and the rise of historical romance; 3. Historical romance and the stadialist model of progress; 4. The regionalism of historical romance; 5. Hawthorne and the ironies of New England history; 6. Melville: the red comets return; 7. The hero and heroine of historical romance; 8. The historical romance of the South; 9. Retrospect: departures and returns; Notes; Index.