Table of Contents

Introduction: The Literary History of Chicago Frederik Byrn Køhlert; Part I. The Rise of Chicago and the Literary West: 1. From Prairie to Metropolis: Chicago as the American 'Shock City' Christophe Den Tandt; 2. Birth, Fire, and Rebirth: Edward Payson Roe's Barriers Burned Away and the Invention of Chicago Literature Charles Byler; 3. 'This Broad, free inland America of Ours': Hamlin Garland, Chicago, and the Literary West Christine Holbo; 4. White City: The World's Columbian Exposition in Literature Rebecca S. Graff; 5. New Realities, New Realisms: Chicago Literature against the Genteel Tradition Robert Birdwell; Part II. Business Unusual: A New Urban American Literature: 6. Among the Skyscrapers: Henry B. Fuller's Chicago Novels Joseph A. Dimuro; 7. The Price of Success: Robert Herrick's the Memoirs of an American Citizen and the American Business Novel Jose Fernandez; 8. 'A Story of Chicago': The Future of Place in Frank Norris's The Pit Jason Puskar; 9. Amid Forces: Theodore Dreiser's Chicago T. Austin Graham; 10. Eugene Field, Finley Peter Dunne, and George Ade: A New Urban Vernacular John Wharton Lowe; Part III. Radicalism, Modernism, and the Chicago Renaissance: 11. Progressive Chicago: Upton Sinclair, Jane Addams, and Social Reform Literature Rachel Elin Nolan; 12. From the Prairie to the City: Willa Cather's 'City of Feeling' Mark A. Robison; 13. Poetry, the Little Review, and Chicago Modernism Bartholomew Brinkman; 14. A Spirit of Two Ages: The Romantic Modernism of Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems John Marsh; 15. Building a Movement: Mary Reynolds Aldis and Little Theatre in Chicago Megan E. Geigner; 16. Father to Son: Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson, and the Chicago Renaissance Timothy B. Spears; Part IV. A City of Neighborhoods: The Great Depression, Sociology, and the Black Chicago Renaissance: 17. Chicago Ecology and James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan Moacir P. de Sá Pereira; 18. Chicago gets the Blues: Migration, Depression, and the Black Renaissance Richard A. Courage; 19. Black Chicago: Richard Wright's South Side William R. Nash; 20. Life in Bronzeville: Humanism and Community in the Work of Gwendolyn Brooks Courtney Pierre Joseph; 21. Hustlers, Junkies, and Prostitutes: Nelson Algren's White Slums Ian Peddie; 22. From Emptyland to Uncanny City: Saul Bellow's Jewish Chicago Alan Bilton; Part V. Traditions and Futures: Contemporary Chicago Literatures: 23. Division Street America: The Nine Chicago Literary Lives of Studs Terkel Tony Macaluso; 24. Sexual and Other Perversities: David Mamet and Vontemporary Chicago Theater Ira Nadel; 25. Chicago Crime, Blue Collar and White: Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski Novels Charlotte Beyer; 26. Drawing Chicago: Chris Ware's Graphic City Frederik Byrn Køhlert; 27. Across Neighborhood and National Boundaries: Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, and Mexican Chicago Olga L. Herrera; 28. Stuart Dybek and the New Chicago's Literature of Neighborhood Carlo Rotella; 29. Chicago Now: Aleksandar Hemon, Dmitry Samarov, Erika L. Sánchez and the Contemporary City of Immigrants Sonia Weiner; 30. Afterword: What Will Become of Us? The Future of Chicago Literatures Bill Savage.

Promotional Information

The book provides an inclusive, engaging, innovative, and interdisciplinary overview of the often overlooked literary history of Chicago.

About the Author

Frederik Byrn Køhlert is associate professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of The Chicago Literary Experience: Writing the City, 1893–1953 and Serial Selves: Identity and Representation in Autobiographical Comics.