Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-442) and index.
Contents
Introduction : toward a history of texts -- The book in the new republic -- Ideology and genre -- Literacy, education, and the reader -- Commodity and communication : the first American novel -- Privileging the Feme covert : the sociology of sentimental fiction -- The Picaresque and the margins of political discourse -- Early American gothic : the limits of individualism -- Afterword : texts as histories.