Presents a collection of Mark Twain's stories, essays, and letters. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Book by Quirk, Tom

Product Description: Bergsonian "vitalism" challenged the dominance of Spencerian determinism in the early twentieth century and seemed to offer a new foundation for belief in human freedom and individual possibility. Quirk traces the impact of Bergsonism upon the American sensibility and shows how individual writers -- particularly two such different artists as Willa Cather and Wallace Stevens -- appropriated vitalistic notions and made them serve the peculiar requirements of their own unique creative imaginations...read more

This collection of essays describes the genesis of ten classic works of American literature. Using biographical, cultural, and manuscript evidence, the contributors tell the "stories of stories," plotting the often curious and always interesting ways in which notable American books took shape in a writer's mind.The genetic approach taken in these essays derives from a curiosity, and sometimes a feeling of awe, about how a work of literature came to exist -- what motivated its creation, informed its vision, urged its completion. It is just that sort of wonder that first brings some people to love writers and their books.Originally published in 1990.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Product Description: In Coming to Grips with HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Tom Quirk traces the history of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from its inception in 1876 to its problematic presence in today's American culture. By approaching Twain's novel from several quite different perspectives, Quirk reveals how the author's imagination worked and why this novel has affected so many people for so long and in so many curious ways...read more

Product Description: These short fiction and prose pieces display the variety of Twain's imaginative invention, his diverse talents, and his extraordinary emotional range. Twain was a master of virtually every prose genre; in fables and stories, speeches and essays, he skilfully adapted, extended or satirized literary conventions, guided only by his unruly imagination...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This collection of twelve essays focuses on a variety of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century texts to illustrate the flexibility of the realist mode in American fiction and poetry. As the volume demonstrates, the realist era was hospitable to a multitude of writers who voiced the most urgent concerns of race and ethnicity, gender, class, and region...read more

Product Description: Tom Quirk's study provides a comprehensive analysis of the comic genius and narrative originality that makes Mark Twain's short fiction a cornerstone of the American literary tradition. Quirk's presentation of Twain's career as a writer of short fiction is complemented with selections of Twain's essays rounds out this balanced and informative work...read more

Presents forty-seven short stories by such authors as Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Henry James, Kate Chopin, and Edith Wharton. (view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Alphabetically arranged entries use an integrated 'new historicist' approach to offer a comprehensive overview of the period that spans the early national era through the Civil War to the end of World War I.

Product Description: This A-Z, cross-referenced and illustrated title provides a unique overview of the period following the Civil War through the emergence of the United States as a world power at the end of World War I. The set features more than 250 survey entries...read more

'Explores Mark Twain's works--including The Innocents Abroad, Following the Equator, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Puddin' Head Wilson, and What Is Man?--in terms of his interest in the subject of human nature, examining how his outlook on the human condition changed over the years'--Provided by publisher.

Product Description: Scholars have long noted the role that college literary anthologies play in the rising and falling reputations of American authors. Canons by Consensus examines this classroom fixture in detail to challenge and correct a number of assumptions about the development of the literary canon throughout the 20th century...read more