Letters and Cultural Transformations in the United States, 1760-1860 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780754666226)

This volume illustrates the significance of epistolarity as a literary phenomenon intricately interwoven with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural developments. Rejecting the common categorization of letters as primarily private documents, this collection of essays demonstrates the genre's persistent public engagements with changing cultural dynamics of the revolutionary, early republican, and antebellum eras. Sections of the collection treat letters' implication in transatlanticism, authorship, and reform movements as well as the politics and practices of editing letters. The wide range of authors considered include Mercy Otis Warren, Charles Brockden Brown, members of the Emerson and Peabody families, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Stoddard, Catherine Brown, John Brown, and Harriet Jacobs. The volume is particularly relevant for researchers in U.S. literature and history, as well as women's writing and periodical studies. This dynamic collection offers scholars an exemplary template of new approaches for exploring an understudied yet critically important literary genre.

Author: Sharon M. Harris
ISBN-10: 0754666220
ISBN-13: 9780754666226
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 09/28/2009
Pages: 290
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.29lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2010 pg. 283