Title: Voices of the nation
First published: 1998
Description: Throughout the nineteenth century, American fiction displayed a fascination with women's speech - describing how women's voices sound and what reactions their speech produces, especially in their male listeners. Closer inspection of these recurring descriptions reveals that they also performed political work that has had a profound - though until now unspecified - impact on American culture.

Caroline Leyander illustrates how commentaries on the female voice, propounded by such writers as Henry James, William Dean Howells, and Noah Webster, played a central role in attempts to define and enforce the radical social changes instituted by the emerging bourgeoisie. Levander also shows how nineteenth-century women authors depicted the female voice as a central theme in their novels and how these portrayals affected public speech.
Subjects: Voice in literature, Public speaking for women, History and criticism, Speech in literature, Women authors, Women and literature, Oratory in literature, American fiction, Women in literature, Public speaking for women in literature, History, American fiction, history and criticism, 19th century, American fiction, women authors, Public speaking
Places: United States
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: PS374.W6 L48 1998