Grief and Genre in American Literature, 1790-1870

In a lengthy introductory essay, Henderson (English, women's studies, U. of Texas, Arlington) explains that "[n]ineteenth-century America was obsessed with [the universality of death] and the literature and popular culture of that age were permeated with representation of death and its consequences for the living." Her study is divided into five chapters in which she discusses funeral sermons, fallen women, and the early American novel; William Apess and national mourning; Frederick Douglass and the slave cemetery; Walt Whitman and the Civil War cemetery; and mourning books--the conduct literature of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Emily Dickinson. In her afterword, the author discusses modern genres of grief. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

DesirAce Henderson is Associate Professor of English and Interim Director of Women's Studies at University of Texas Arlington, where she specializes in early American and women's literature.