Literary Criticism - General & Miscellaneous, 20th Century American Literature - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, Women Authors - American (U.S.) - Literary Criticism, Literary Criticism - U.S. Fiction & Prose Literature - General & Miscellan

Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860-1940

Name: Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860-1940
Author: Peter Stoneley
ISBN: 9780521035750

by Peter Stoneley

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Overview

Why did the figure of "the girl" come to dominate the American imagination from the middle of the nineteenth century into the twentieth? In Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, Peter Stoneley looks at how women fictionalized for the girl reader ways of achieving a powerful social and cultural presence. He explores why and how this scenario of buying into womanhood became, between 1860 and 1940, one of the nation's central allegories, one of its favorite means of negotiating social change. From Jo March to Nancy Drew, girls' fiction operated in dynamic relation to consumerism, performing a series of otherwise awkward maneuvers: between country and metropolis, "uncouth" and "unspoilt," modern and anti-modern. Covering a wide range of works and writers, this book will be of interest to cultural and literary scholars alike.

Synopsis

Examines how women fictionalised for the girl reader ways of achieving a powerful social and cultural presence.

About the Author, Peter Stoneley

Peter Stoneley is Lecturer in the School of English at Queen's University, Belfast. He is the author of Mark Twain and the Feminine Aesthetic (Cambridge, 1992).