Reading Fiction in Antebellum America Informed Response and Reception Histories, 1820-1865 /

Machor, James L,

Reading Fiction in Antebellum America Informed Response and Reception Histories, 1820-1865 / [print] James L. Machor. - Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, (c)2011. - 1 online resource (xiv, 403 pages) - Book collections on Project MUSE. .



part 1. Reading reading historically. Historical hermeneutics, reception theory, and the social conditions of reading in antebellum America ; Interpretive strategies and informed reading in the antebellum public sphere-- -- part 2. Contextual receptions, reading experiences, and patterns of response: four case studies. "These days of double dealing": informed response, reader appropriation, and the tales of Poe ; Multiple audiences and Melville's fiction: receptions, recoveries, and regressions ; Response as (re)construction: the reception of Catharine Sedgwick's novels ; Mercurial readings: the making and unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'-- Conclusion: American literary history and the historical study of interpretive practices.

9780801899331




American fiction--History and criticism.--19th century
Authors and readers--History--United States--19th century.
Books and reading--History--United States--19th century.
Reader-response criticism--United States.

PS377 PS377.P964.R433 2011