Responding to the rich generic and thematic diversity of the writing represented in Nineteenth–century American Women Writers: An Anthology, also edited by Karen L. Kilcup, this critical reader, specifically designed to accompany the anthology, contains twelve original essays – ten newly–written – on a wide range of topics, together with an introductory overview by the editor. The volume explores for students and scholars the interwoven matters of history, canonicity, and criticism, highlighting the collective importance of nineteenth–century women"s writing, an illuminating in particular the complex hybrid texts and shorter genres that many women produced. The essays address large conceptual issues and offer suggestive close readings of individual texts. They ask such questions as: How do these texts use and "misuse" the conventions of their time to create new perspectives, forms, and voices? What are the connections between various kinds of...