A History of American Civil War Literature

This book is the first omnibus history of the literature of the American Civil War, the deadliest conflict in US history. A History of American Civil War Literature examines the way in which the war has been remembered and rewritten over time in prose, poems, and other narratives. This history incorporates new directions in Civil War historiography and cultural studies while giving equal attention to writings from both northern and southern states. It redresses the traditional neglect of southern literary cultures by moving between the North and the South, thus finding a balance between Union and Confederate texts. Written by leading scholars in the field, this book works to redefine the boundaries of American Civil War literature while posing a fundamental question: why does this 150-year-old conflict continue to capture the American imagination?

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the 'book that made this great war' Judie Newman; 2. The American book trade and the Civil War Michael Winship; 3. The transatlantic history of Civil War literature Christopher Hanlon; 4. The 'American renaissance' after the American Civil War Randall Fuller; 5. The realists' Civil War Ian Finseth; 6. Dépôt culture: the Civil War and periodical fiction Kathleen Diffley; 7. Imitation and resistance in Civil War poetry and song Faith Barrett; 8. Children's literature James Marten; 9. Writing lives: Civil War diaries Jane E. Schultz; 10. Civil War memoir Sarah E. Gardner; 11. Civil War narrative history T. Austin Graham; 12. Walt Whitman Martin Buinicki; 13. Emily Dickinson Shira Wolosky; 14. Herman Melville Milette Shamir; 15. Abraham Lincoln Shirley Samuels; 16. Frederick Douglass Robert S. Levine; 17. Mary Boykin Chesnut Julia A. Stern; 18. Mark Twain Neil Schmitz; 19. William Faulkner John T. Matthews; 20. Robert Penn Warren John Burt; 21. Natasha Trethewey Daniel Cross Turner.

Coleman Hutchison is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America (2012) and the co-author of Writing about American Literature (with Karen Gocsik, 2014). Hutchison's work has also appeared in such journals as American Literary History, Common-Place, Comparative American Studies, CR: The New Centennial Review, the Journal of American Studies, The Emily Dickinson Journal, PMLA, and Southern Spaces.