Reading the West

The American West of myth and legend has always exerted a strong hold on the popular imagination, and the essays in Reading the West examine some of the basis of that fascination. Reading the West is a collection of critical essays by writers, independent scholars and critics on the literature of the American West in the last two centuries. It showcases new ways of reading and understanding western writing. Arguing for the importance of ‘place’ in literature, these essays explore what makes representative literary works ‘western’. They also explore the multicultural and ecological dimensions of western writing. This volume helps enrich our understanding of a distinguished body of literary work which has sometimes been unjustly ignored. It deals not only with literature but with the changing conception of the West in the American imagination.

• Brings together writers as well as critics so has broad appeal • Examines many under-treated western works • Well-known and respected contributors

Introduction Michael Kowalewski; Part I. Nature and Place in Western Writing: 1. Region, power, place William W. Bevis; 2. Burros and Mustangs: literary evolutionism and the wilderness west David Rains Wallace; Part II. Reimagining the American Frontier: 3.The Literature of loneliness: understanding the letters and diaries of the American West Shannon Applegate; 4. Quoting the wicked wit of the West: Frontier reportage and Western vernacular Michael Kowalewski; 5. Bierstadt’s settings, Harte’s plots Lee Mitchell; Part III. Modern Western Revisions: 6. Sentimentalism in the American Southwest: John C. Van Dyke, Mary Austin and Edward Abbey Peter Wild; 7. Revisionist Western classics Thomas J. Lyon; Molly’s truthtelling, or Jean Stafford rewrites the Western Susan J. Rosowski; 8. Borders, frontiers and mountains: mapping the history of ‘US Hispanic Literature’ Margaret Garcia Davidson; Part IV. Contemporary Western Writing: A Mosaic: 9. The return of the native: the politics of identity in American Indian fiction of the West Philip Burnham; 10. Regionalism makes good: the San Francisco Renaissance Linda Hamalian; ‘The Circle Almost Circled’: some notes on California’s fiction James D. Houston; 11. Fighting the religion of the present: Western motifs in the first wave of Asian American plays Misha Berson.