Pattee surveys American writing from the years after the Civil War into the early twentieth century, beginning with the laughter of the West and moving through Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, the nature writers, Walt Whitman and the poets and novelists who followed. He pays close attention to how new regional voices reshaped a literature long centred on New England.
An early academic history of the period, published in 1915, and still a useful guide to writers now half forgotten. Download the free EPUB.