A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914 is a groundbreaking collection of essays written by leading critics for a wide audience of scholars, students, and interested general readers.

• An exceptionally broad-ranging and accessible Companion to the study of American fiction of the post-civil war period and the early twentieth century Brings together 29 essays by top scholars, each of which presents a synthesis of the best research and offers an original perspective
• Divided into sections on historical traditions and genres, contexts and themes, and major authors
• Covers a mixture of canonical and the non-canonical themes, authors, literatures, and critical approaches
• Explores innovative topics, such as ecological literature and ecocriticism, children's literature, and the influence of Darwin on fiction

Robert Paul Lamb is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University. The author of many articles on American literature and recipient of Harvard University’s Bowdoin Prize for scholarship, his teaching honors include Harvard’s Stephen J. Botein Prize, Purdue’s University Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, Purdue’s Liberal Arts Departmental Award for Educational Excellence, and induction into The Purdue Book of Great Teachers.

G.R. Thompson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Purdue University. His previous publications include the Norton Critical Edition of Edgar Allan Poe (2004), Neutral Ground: New Traditionalism and the American Romance Controversy (1999), The Art of Authorial Presence: Hawthorne’s Provincial Tales (1993), Essays and Reviews ofEdgar Allan Poe (1984), Ruined Eden of the Present: Hawthorne, Melville and Poe (1981) and Poe’s Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales (1973).