American literary realism, critical theory, and intellectual prestige, 1880-1995 - Barrish, Phillip (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-208) and index
William Dean Howells and the roots of realist taste -- The "facts of physical suffering, " the literary intellectual, and The wings of the dove -- The "genuine article": credit and ethnicity in The rise of David Levinsky -- What Nona knows -- From reality, to materiality, to the real (and back again): the dynamics of distinction on the recent critical scene
Focusing on key works of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American literary realism, Barrish traces the emergence of new ways of gaining intellectual prestige and some degree of cultural recognition. This book is the first extended treatment of a genre, realism, central to our understanding of American literature