Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860-1940 (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

Why did the figure of "the girl" come to dominate the American imagination from the middle of the nineteenth century into the twentieth? Peter Stoneley looks at how women were fictionalized for the girl reader as ways of achieving a powerful social and cultural presence. Covering a wide range of works and writers, this book is of interest to cultural and literary scholars.