Description
Book SynopsisOffering an intriguing new approach to American cultural history through one of its enduring icons, Larzer Ziff traces the rise and flourishing of an ideal type once represented by such figures as George Washington and Tom Sawyer—a type immensely popular before antiheroes like Holden Caulfield captured our imagination.
Trade Review"Larzer Ziff has a critical method, the one recommended by T. S. Eliot, that of being very intelligent... A sentence by Ziff is worth more than a paragraph by most other scholar-critics." Denis Donoghue, University Professor and Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University "As a whole, Ziff's book offers important cultural contexts for these famous American boys...This study will be of particular interest to those interested in childhood studies, but it also offers a distinct view on US cultural history for all Americanists through its study of the American boy as he morphs from sage truth-teller to angry young man." - Choice
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- One. The New Nation: Young Washington, Rollo
- Two. All-Americans: Tom Bailey, Tom Sawyer
- Three. City Life: Ragged Dick, Peck's Bad Boy, Little Lord Fauntleroy
- Four. America as Middle Class: Penrod
- Five. Antitheses: Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
