Although she enjoyed only modest success during her lifetime, Kate Chopin is now recognised as a unique voice in American literature. Her seminal novel, The Awakening, published in 1899, explored new and startling territory, and stunned readers with its frank depiction of the limits of marriage and motherhood. Chopin's aesthetic tastes and cultural influences were drawn from both the European and American traditions, and her manipulation of her 'foreignness' contributed to the composition of a complex voice that was strikingly different to that of her contemporaries. The essays in this Companion treat a wide range of Chopin's stories and novels, drawing her relationship with other writers, genres and literary developments, and pay close attention to the transatlantic dimension of her work. The result is a collection that brings a fresh perspective to Chopin's writing, one that will appeal to researchers and students of American, nineteenth-century, and feminist literature.

At Fault (1890) is a novel by American author Kate Chopin. Published at the author’s expense, At Fault is the undervalued debut of a pioneering feminist and gifted writer who sought to portray the experiences of Southern women struggling to survive in an era decimated by war and economic hardship. Thérèse Lafirme is a Creole widow whose husband’s death has made the Place-du-Bois plantation on the Cane River in northwestern Louisiana her sole responsibility. Struggling to survive in a region that, following the fall of the Confederacy, has failed to recover from the devastation of defeat, Lafirme agrees to sell her land’s timber rights to a recently divorced businessman named David Hosmer. As the two begin to fall in love, Hosmer’s sawmill causes tension in an agrarian community unaccustomed to modern industry. Hosmer proposes to Thérèse, she is forced to consider the prospect of marriage against the opinion her community as well as her own moral and religious values, to set her personal desires aside in order to appease tradition. When Fanny, Hosmer’s alcoholic ex-wife, re-enters the picture, trouble ensues that threatens to ruin Lafirme’s reputation as an honest, hardworking woman. At Fault, like much of Chopin’s work, went largely unnoticed upon publication, but has since garnered critical acclaim as a work that explores the lived experiences of women and racial minorities during a period of political and economic upheaval. Both fictional and autobiographical—Chopin was a widow of French heritage who struggled to provide for her family following her husband’s death—At Fault is an underappreciated masterpiece of nineteenth-century literature. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Kate Chopin’s At Fault is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

This Companion examines a number of issues related to the terms realism and naturalism. The introduction seeks both to discuss the problems in the use of these two terms in relation to late nineteenth-century fiction and to describe the history of previous efforts to make the terms expressive of American writing of this period. The Companion includes ten essays which fall into four categories: essays on the historical context of realism and naturalism by Louis Budd and Richard Lehan; essays on critical approaches to the movements since the early 1970s by Michael Anesko, essays on the efforts to expand the canon of realism and naturalism by Elizabeth Ammons; and a full-scale discussion of ten major texts, from W. D. Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham to Jack London's The Call of the Wild, by John W. Crowley, Tom Quirk, J. C. Levenson, Blanche Gelfant, Barbara Hochman, and Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin.

An accessible, up-to-date introduction to the life and works of poet and dramatist Ben Jonson.

A fully revised second edition of this multi-author account of Canadian literature, from Aboriginal writing to Margaret Atwood.

Mrs. Louise Mallard, afflicted with a heart condition, reflects on the death of her husband from the safety of her locked room. Originally published in Vogue magazine, “The Story of an Hour” was retitled as “The Dream of an Hour,” when it was published amid much controversy under its new title a year later in St. Louis Life. “The Story of an Hour” was adapted to film in The Joy That Kills by director Tina Rathbone, which was part of a PBS anthology called American Playhouse. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.