Frank Norris and American Naturalism

By (author) Donald Pizer

Publication date:

30 May 2018

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783088027

Frank Norris is a seminal figure in the history of American literary naturalism despite the brevity of his career. Frank Norris and American Naturalism brings together in one volume Donald Pizer’s lifelong exploration of the naturalist’s work, ranging from his 1955 discussion of point of view in The Octopus to his 2010 essay on the thematic unity of that novel. The essays in Frank Norris and American Naturalism as a whole seek to demonstrate both the coherence of Norris’s thought and his contribution toward the establishment of a specific form of naturalism in America. The collection’s principal focus is Norris’s most enduring works, the novels McTeague and The Octopus, though his other fiction and literary criticism are also discussed.

“As a collection of Pizer’s most significant essays on Norris, Frank Norris and American Naturalism gathers in one place a cluster of essays that reminds us of why Norris is worth studying in the first place—and then goes on to demonstrate an admirably lucid and captivating approach to Norris’s major novels and literary criticism.”
—Keith Newlin, Professor, Department of English, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA