Reading the American novel, 1780-1865

Preface --

Introduction to the American novel : from Charles Brockden Brown's gothic novels to Caroline Kirkland's wilderness --

Historical codes in literary analysis : the writing projects of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Stoddard, and Hannah Crafts --

Women, blood, and contract : land claims in Lydia Maria Child, Catharine Sedgwick, and James Fenimore Cooper --

Black rivers, red letters, and white whales : mobility and desire in Catherine Williams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville --

Promoting the nation in James Fenimore Cooper and Harriet Beecher Stowe --

Women's worlds in the 19th century novel : Susan B. Warner, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Fanny Fern, E.D.E.N. Southworth, Harriet Wilson, and Louisa May Alcott --

Afterword.