A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914" is a groundbreaking collection of 29 essays written by leading critics for a wide audience of scholars, students, and interested general readers. An exceptionally broad-ranging and accessible "Companion" to the study of American fiction of the post-civil war period and the early twentieth centuryDivided into sections on historical traditions and genres, contexts and themes, and major authorsCovers a mixture of canonical and the non-canonical themes, authors, literatures, and critical approachesExplores innovative topics, such as ecological literature and ecocriticism, children's literature, and the influence of Darwin on fiction