Susan Williams recovers the literary and cultural significance of early photography in an important rereading of American novels and magazine fiction of the decades preceding the Civil War.
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<p>Susan Williams recovers the literary and cultural significance of early photography in an important rereading of American fiction in the decades preceding the Civil War.<br><br>The rise of photography occurred simultaneously with the rapid expansion of magazine publication in America, and Williams analyzes the particular role that periodicals such as Godey's <i>Lady's Book</i>, Burton's <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, and Atkinson's <i>Casket</i> played in defining how photography was received. At the center of the book are readings of a stunning array of fiction by forgotten and canonical writers alike, including Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, and Sarah Hale, as well as extended interpretations of Nathaniel Hawthorne's <i>House of the Seven Gables</i> and <i>The Marble Faun</i> and Herman Melville's <i>Pierre</i>.<br><br>In a concluding section, Williams offers a view of the fictional portrait in the later nineteenth century, when the proliferation of illustrated books once again transformed the relation between word and image in American culture.</p>
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