Part I: Introduction -- The nineteenth-century women's text and the twentieth-century academic reader: studies in constitutive conventions -- The public text and the private reader: trace studies in gender-based reading strategies -- Widening the scope: strategies for multileveled reading -- Part II: Narrative designs and textual rebellions -- Preludes: the early didactic novel. Narrative control in Charlotte Temple and A New-England tale -- Introduction to the exploratory text: subversions of the narrative design in St. Elmo -- Decoding the exploratory text: subversions of the narrative design in Queechy -- Part III: Narrative rebellions and textual designs -- Inscribing and defining: the many voices of Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall -- Extending and subverting: the iconography of houses in The deserted wife -- Projecting the "I"/conoclast: first-person narration in The Morgesons -- Part IV: The later didactic novel -- Narrative control and thematic radicalism in Work and The silent partner -- Part V: Conclusions and implications -- Anomalies and anxieties: The story of Avis, A country doctor, The awakening, O pioneers!
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-228) and index.