Writers in Retrospect

In the aftermath of America’s centennial celebrations of 1876, readers developed an appetite for chronicles of the nation’s past. Born amid this national vogue, the field of American literary history was touted as the balm for numerous “ills” — from burgeoning immigration to American anti-intellectualism to demanding university administrators — and enjoyed immense popularity between 1880 and 1910. In the first major analysis of the field’s early decades, Claudia Stokes offers important insights