Donald Pizer

Frank Norris is a seminal figure in the history of American literary naturalism despite the brevity of his career. Frank Norris and American Naturalism brings together in one volume Donald Pizer’s lifelong exploration of the naturalist’s work, ranging from his 1955 discussion of point of view in The Octopus to his 2010 essay on the thematic unity of that novel. The essays in Frank Norris and American Naturalism as a whole seek to demonstrate both the coherence of Norris’s thought and his contribution toward the establishment of a specific form of naturalism in America. The collection’s principal focus is Norris’s most enduring works, the novels McTeague and The Octopus, though his other fiction and literary criticism are also discussed.

Frank Norris and American Naturalism

This Companion examines a number of issues related to the terms realism and naturalism. The introduction seeks both to discuss the problems in the use of these two terms in relation to late nineteenth-century fiction and to describe the history of previous efforts to make the terms expressive of American writing of this period. The Companion includes ten essays which fall into four categories: essays on the historical context of realism and naturalism by Louis Budd and Richard Lehan; essays on critical approaches to the movements since the early 1970s by Michael Anesko, essays on the efforts to expand the canon of realism and naturalism by Elizabeth Ammons; and a full-scale discussion of ten major texts, from W. D. Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham to Jack London's The Call of the Wild, by John W. Crowley, Tom Quirk, J. C. Levenson, Blanche Gelfant, Barbara Hochman, and Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin.

From Howells to London

The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism

John Dos Passos

This annotated edition of Manhattan Transfer provides the reader, in notes easily accessible at the bottom of the page, with the information necessary to grasp a fuller understanding of the novel's dense rendering of its early 20th century New York setting.

Manhattan Transfer

This book brings together for the first time, and in one convenient volume, published and unpublished memoirs about the American novelist Theodore Dreiser. The recollections of Dreiser's contemporaries bring to the fore the writer's politics, personal life, and literary reception. Donald Pizer is one of the world's leading scholars of Dreiser and of naturalism.

Theodore Dreiser Recalled

Richard W. Dowell

Frederic E. Rusch

A Primary Bibliography and Reference Guide

Theodore Dreiser

Investigates the sources and composition of each of Dreiser's eight novels and interprets the themes and literary devices of his completed works

A Critical Study

The Novels of Theodore Dreiser

Bio-bibliographical guide covering Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy, presenting material on every major phase in the origin, postpublication history, and meaning of the novel. Includes brief overviews of Dreiser's life and the chronology of An American Tragedy, which provide context for the novel.

A Documentary Volume

Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy

The introduction by Donald Pizer describes in detail the biographical and historical background of the novel and its critical reputation. The four original essays in the volume not only touch on long-established approaches to Sister Carrie but also reflect a number of the concerns of recent scholarly and critical movements. Each of the essays is a self-standing examination of a major area of interest in the novel, including such topics as the impact of Dreiser's own life on the creation of Carrie and Hurstwood, the relationship of Carrie and the theater, and Dreiser's naturalism and his narrative technique.

New Essays on Sister Carrie

Emory Elliot

Donald E. Pease

Professor of English Comparative Literature and African-American Literature Donald E Pease

Argues the renewed importance of Howells's novel for an understanding of literature as a social force as well as a literary form.

Donald Pizer

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