Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America

Contents: Introduction :; On the idea of cultures of letters Sparing the rod : discipline and fiction in antebellum America Veiled ladies : toward a history of antebellum entertainment Starting out in the 1860s : Alcott, authorship, and the postbellum literary field The reading of regions:; For a history of literary access The reading of regions : a study in the social life of forms Jewett, regionalism, and writing as women's work "Why could not a colored man?" : Chesnutt and the transaction of authorship