Tessa Roynon is a Senior Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, where she teaches American and world literature. Internationally renowned for her work on Toni Morrison, she has published extensively on numerous modern American novelists including E.L. Doctorow, Ralph Ellison, Jeffrey Eugenides and Marilynne Robinson. Her second sole-authored book, Toni Morrison and the Classical Tradition: Transforming American Culture (OUP, 2013), was awarded the Toni Morrison Society Book Prize in 2015.

• Preface and AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Greek and Roman presences in the modern American novelChapter 1 – Willa Cather (1873-1946)1.1 Cather and the Classics1.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate1.3 My Ántonia (1918)1.4 The Professor’s House (1925)1.5 Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940)Chapter 2 – F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)2.1 Fitzgerald and the Classics2.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate2.3 This Side of Paradise (1920)2.4 The Great Gatsby (1925)2.5 Tender is the Night (1934)Chapter 3 – William Faulkner (1897-1962)3.1 Faulkner and the Classics3.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate3.3 Light in August (1932)3.4 Absalom, Absalom! (1936)3.5 Go Down, Moses (1942)Chapter 4 – Ralph Ellison (1913-1994)4.1 Ellison and the Classics4.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate4.3 Invisible Man (1952)4.4 Thee Days Before the Shooting … Part I (2010)4.5 Three Days Before the Shooting … Part II (2010)Chapter 5 – Toni Morrison (1931-2019)5.1 Morrison and the Classics5.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate5.3 Song of Solomon (1977)5.4 Beloved (1987)5.5 Jazz (1992)Chapter 6 – Philip Roth (1933-2018)6.1 Roth and the Classics6.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate6.3 American Pastoral (1997)6.4 I Married a Communist (1998)6.5 The Human Stain (2000)Chapter 7 – Marilynne Robinson (1943- )7.1 Robinson and the Classics7.2 The Critical Field and Scholarly Debate7.3 Housekeeping (1980)7.4 Gilead (2004)7.5 Home (2008)Conclusion: the diversity of modern American fiction’s classicismWorks CitedAppendices:1 – Glossary of the classical terms used in this book2 – ResourcesIndex

This pioneering study provides penetrating and illuminating analysis of the creative and ideological manipulation of some central texts of ancient Greek and Roman literature in a set of key modern American novels, bringing together the disciplines of classical reception and American studies in a rich and revealing combination.