Reading the West
Subtitle: New Essays on the Literature of the American West (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: February 23, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9780521450614
Subjects: Literary studies: 19th century; Western stories; Homes and haunts; American Literature (General); Special Subjects In Literature; Literature - Classics / Criticism; American English; Literary Criticism; USA; American - General; Essays; Literary Criticism & Collections / American; American literature; Authors, American; History and criticism; West (U.S.)
First sentence: "Place" and "region" permeate western literature, from James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie in 1825 to Mary Austin's The Land of Little Rain (1903) to Ivan Doig's This House of Sky (1978), subtitled "Landscapes of a Western Mind."
Description: Reading the West is a collection of critical essays by writers, independent scholars, and critics on the literature of the American West. The essays in this volume enrich our understanding of western writing by reemphasizing the importance of "place" in literary studies. Whether focusing upon gender, genre, class, or multiethnic and environmental concerns, these essays seek to reinvigorate an interest in regional artistry.

Aimed to a general audience as well as an academic readership, this volume conveys a sense of the true depth and complexity of western writing, from the nineteenth century to the present.