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Eliot distinguished herself from other Victorian novelists through her realism, her use of an engaging narrator, and her indebtedness to thinkers such as Comte, Mill, and Darwin. The essays assembled in this book represent the best criticism of Eliot's novels from the 19th century to the present day.

By focusing on Reed's novels, this volume charts the critical response to his works over time. The book is organized by decade, with each section containing book reviews and articles. Reed's concern with artistic freedom is explored and the evolution of his neo-hoodoo aesthetic is examined.

Also included is a selective bibliography of modern scholarship. Among the early documents reprinted are contemporary news accounts of Hawthorne's dismissal from the Salem Custom House in June 1849, which provide the immediate background to The Custom House introduction in the story, the publisher James T.

Extolled and maligned, Eugene O'Neill was unquestionably the first American playwright of international stature, and his major plays, such as The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey Into Night, remain giants of the American stage.

The volume provides a clear and comprehensive assessment of Cheever's critical reputation both during his lifetime, as each of his books was published and reviewed, and retrospectively, by academics and literary historians who have sought to place Cheever's work in a larger literary context.

This volume collects some of the most significant critical responses to the works of Bram Stoker, a writer best known in our time as the author of Dracula.

Joan Didion is a major contemporary American novelist and journalist whose works have popular appeal and are widely studied from a variety of literary perspectives as well as for philosophical, psychological, and political insights into the times and topics with which they deal.

This volume traces the critical response to his work. Included in this book are reviews and critical essays on Vonnegut's writings from the roots of his career to the present day.

The selections of criticism in this anthology reveal the social, cultural, and economic contexts of the writings of Tillie Olsen. The pieces link her with traditional American literary figures, and relate her to socialist feminist literary tradition and the Jewish American tradition as well.

This collection of reviews and essays traces critical responses to the work of African American author, Chester Himes, between 1946 and 1996. It includes assessments of all his work, and an interview with Himes' brother that offers some corrective commentary on his autobiography.

His writings reflect his experiences growing up in the poverty and racial strife of the South, and his thoughts on major social issues. This volume traces the critical reception of Wright's major works, from the publication of Native Son to the present day.

And because of its complexity, it has become a test case in literary studies as a focal point for changing critical assumptions and literary values. The volume is organized in chapters devoted to particular centuries, with each chapter presenting a selection of reviews and critical essays from that period.

This volume contains the key pieces of criticism on London's major works arranged chronologically to reconstruct the literary debate on London's work from earliest reviews to recent analyses.

Dashiell Hammett is one of the most popular American writers of detective fiction. This collection includes contemporary reviews of his work from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as essays representing diverse critical approaches and assessments.

From the publication of his first major volume in 1946, Lord Weary's Castle, to a few years before his death in 1977, Robert Lowell held sway as the premier English-language poet of his time.

One of the most controversial American authors of the twentieth century, Truman Capote is best known as the author of In Cold Blood (1966), a work of literary journalism that recounts the slaughter of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959.

Through reviews and essays, this reference work summarizes the critical reception of Carlyle's writings from their initial appearance to the present day. Born in 1795, Thomas Carlyle was one of the preeminent figures of Victorian letters.

This book brings together, for the first time, almost one hundred documents on her work, including contemporary reviews, letters, diary entries, the most important critical assessments, and several new pieces. The chapters that follow consist of chronologically arranged critical analyses of particular works by Radcliffe.

Ralph Ellison's literary career began in 1937 with the publication of his review of Waters Edward Turpin's These Low Grounds. Over the next 15 years he published 10 short stories and 37 essays on literary, cultural, and political topics.

This volume brings together book reviews, criticism, interviews, biographical materials, and bibliography spanning the entire corpus of Beattie's fiction to date---five short-story collections and four novels published through 1991.

These pieces treat various aspects of Chandler's art, such as his writing style, the nature of the hard-boiled detective hero, the relation of Chandler to his contemporaries, Los Angeles as the setting for his fiction, studies of individual novels, and analyses of films of Chandler's works.

Though one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Saul Bellow has continually elicited conflicting responses from critics.

He is best remembered today as the author of classic works of science fiction, such as The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The First Men in the Moon.

Since her untimely death from tuberculosis in 1923, her writings have drawn increasingly varied critical attention. Through a collection of essays and reviews, this volume traces the critical response to Mansfield's writings.

But despite the publication of four new editions of the book from 1989 to 1997, its place in the American literary canon is precarious. Through reprints of early reviews and scholarly articles, along with original essays and reviews of the four most recent major editions, this volume traces the critical reception of Steinbeck's novel.

As the author of The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey's Cafe, Gloria Naylor is widely respected as one of the most important contemporary African American women writers.

Though recognized as a 20th-century popular author, Erskine Caldwell was also a serious writer and this is examined in this book. The 57 pieces in the book seek to represent all sides and perspectives in the critical opinion of his work.

This text traces the critical reception of the writings of William Styron since the 1950s. All of Styron's novels are covered, with an emphasis on "Lie Down in Darkness", "The Confessions of Nat Turner" and "Sophie's Choice". A bibliography lists Styron's writings, along with critical studies.

This work gathers commentaries, parodies and reminiscences of Gertrude Stein - one of America's most controversial modernist authors. Her precarious position in the eyes of the American press is examined, and previously unpublished sources are presented.

So too, his texts have engaged some of the best critical minds, and scholarship on Lawrence and his works continues to grow. This reference chronicles the critical response to his writings. A chronology presents the highlights in his publishing career, while an introductory essay summarizes the major trends in Lawrence criticism.