The primeval fields of nature : Chateaubriand, Cooper and the transatlantic novel -- Storied associations : Washington Irving goes to Europe -- Blowing up the 'Merrikins : Charles Dickens and the regeneration of man -- The rogue and the detectives : Hawthorne, Melville and the European ruins -- The lighted stage : Twain, James and the European shrine -- Christmas at Brede : American realities, European romance -- Dentists at home : Gertrude Stein, D.H. Lawrence and the modern century -- A generation lost and found : Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the Paris of the Twenties -- Down and out in Paris and Mexico : Miller, Lowry and the low dishonest decade -- Life among the ruins : Wilson, Waugh and the great Pax Americana -- Frequent flyers : Transatlantic fictions today.