Research Catalog
Failure and the American Writer : a Literary History
- Title
- Failure and the American Writer : a Literary History / Gavin Jones.
- Author
- Jones, Gavin Roger, 1968-
- Publication
- New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Supplementary Content
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 15-5555 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xii, 191 p. : ill.; 24 cm
- Summary
- "If America worships success, then why has the nation's literature dwelled obsessively on failure? This book explores encounters with failure by nineteenth-century writers - ranging from Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville to Mark Twain and Sarah Orne Jewett - whose celebrated works more often struck readers as profoundly messy, flawed and even perverse. Reading textual inconsistency against the backdrop of a turbulent nineteenth century, Gavin Jones describes how the difficulties these writers faced in their faltering search for new styles, coherent characters and satisfactory endings uncovered experiences of blunder and inadequacy hidden in the culture at large. Through Jones's treatment, these American writers emerge as the great theorists of failure who discovered ways to translate their own social insecurities into complex portrayals of a modern self, founded in moral fallibility, precarious knowledge and negative feelings"--
- Series Statement
- Cambridge studies in American literature and culture
- Uniform Title
- Cambridge studies in American literature and culture.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: Henry Adams and the catastrophic century -- 1. Falling for Edgar Allan Poe -- 2. Herman Melville in the doldrum --; 3. The disappointments of Henry David Thoreau -- 4. Stephen Crane's fake war -- 5. The double failure of Mark Twain -- 6. Sarah Orne Jewett falling short -- 7. The faltering style of Henry James -- Conclusion.
- Call Number
- JFE 15-5555
- ISBN
- 9781107056671 (hardback)
- 1107056675 (hardback)
- 9781107662179 (paperback)
- 1107662176 (paperback)
- LCCN
- 2013036432
- OCLC
- 861335220
- Author
- Jones, Gavin Roger, 1968-
- Title
- Failure and the American Writer : a Literary History / Gavin Jones.
- Imprint
- New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Type of Content
- Type of Medium
- Type of Carrier
- Series
- Cambridge studies in American literature and cultureCambridge studies in American literature and culture.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Connect to:
- Chronological Term
- 1800 - 1899
- Research Call Number
- JFE 15-5555