Conflicting stories American women writers at the turn into the twentieth century - Ammons, Elizabeth 1943- (Oxford University Press, 1992)
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-226) and index
Cover -- Contents -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Breaking Silence: lola Leroy -- 3. Writing Silence: "The Yellow Wallpaper" -- 4. Finding Form: Narrative Geography and The Country of the Pointed Firs -- 5. The Limits of Freedom: The Fiction of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Kate Chopin, and Pauline Hopkins -- 6. Form and Difference: Gertrude Stein and Mary Austin -- 7. Audacious Words: Sui Sin Far's Mrs. Spring Fragrance -- 8. Art: Willa Cather, the Woman Writer as Artist, and Humishuma -- 9. Plots: Jessie Fauset and Edith Wharton -- 10. Slow Starvation: Hunger and Hatred in Anzia Yezierska, Ellen Glasgow, and Edith Summers Kelley -- 11. Jumping Out the Window: Nella Larsen's Passing and the End of an Era -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Last Page
Liz Ammons's book examines the dramatic appearance, at the turn of the century, of a highly talented group of American women writers from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. How isolated occurrences of talent coalesced into a virtual phenomenon, and against what historical and social obstacles women of the early twentieth century contended, are recurring themes of Ammons' study. Posthumous barriers exist for these women today in the form of literary obscurity; Ammons seeks to overturn these barriers and broaden public recognition beyond individual, received authors (such as Wharton and Cather) by demonstrating the abilities of their peers. With extensive inclusion of numerous previously neglected women writers of African-American descent, Conflicting Stories joins a highly topical debate, and offers a necessary revision of mainstream criticism's simplified reading of America's literary past