James L. Machor is a professor of English at Kansas State University, editor of Readers in History: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Contexts of Response, also published by Johns Hopkins, and coeditor of Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies and New Directions in American Reception Study.

• PrefacePart I: Reading Reading Historically1. Historical Hermeneutics, Reception Theory, and the Social Conditions of Reading in Antebellum America2. Interpretive Strategies and Informed Reading in the Antebellum Public SpherePart II: Contextual Receptions, Reading Experiences, and Patterns of Response: Four Case Studies3. "These Days of Double Dealing": Informed Response, Reader Appropriation, and the Tales of Poe4. Multiple Audiences and Melville's Fiction: Receptions, Recoveries, and Regressions5. Response as (Re)Construction: The Reception of Catharine Sedgwick's Novels6. Mercurial Readings: The Making and Unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'Conclusion: American Literary History and the Historical Study of Interpretive PracticesNotesIndex

"An important book that fills significant gaps in literary and historical scholarship on the reading, reception, publishing, and interpretation of antebellum fiction." (Barbara Hochman, Ben Gurion University)"

James L. Machor is a professor of English at Kansas State University, editor of Readers in History: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Contexts of Response, also published by Johns Hopkins, and coeditor of Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies and New Directions in American Reception Study.

• PrefacePart I: Reading Reading Historically1. Historical Hermeneutics, Reception Theory, and the Social Conditions of Reading in Antebellum America2. Interpretive Strategies and Informed Reading in the Antebellum Public SpherePart II: Contextual Receptions, Reading Experiences, and Patterns of Response: Four Case Studies3. "These Days of Double Dealing": Informed Response, Reader Appropriation, and the Tales of Poe4. Multiple Audiences and Melville's Fiction: Receptions, Recoveries, and Regressions5. Response as (Re)Construction: The Reception of Catharine Sedgwick's Novels6. Mercurial Readings: The Making and Unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'Conclusion: American Literary History and the Historical Study of Interpretive PracticesNotesIndex

"An important book that fills significant gaps in literary and historical scholarship on the reading, reception, publishing, and interpretation of antebellum fiction." (Barbara Hochman, Ben Gurion University)"

James L. Machor is a professor of English at Kansas State University, editor of Readers in History: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Contexts of Response, also published by Johns Hopkins, and coeditor of Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies and New Directions in American Reception Study.

• PrefacePart I: Reading Reading Historically1. Historical Hermeneutics, Reception Theory, and the Social Conditions of Reading in Antebellum America2. Interpretive Strategies and Informed Reading in the Antebellum Public SpherePart II: Contextual Receptions, Reading Experiences, and Patterns of Response: Four Case Studies3. "These Days of Double Dealing": Informed Response, Reader Appropriation, and the Tales of Poe4. Multiple Audiences and Melville's Fiction: Receptions, Recoveries, and Regressions5. Response as (Re)Construction: The Reception of Catharine Sedgwick's Novels6. Mercurial Readings: The Making and Unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'Conclusion: American Literary History and the Historical Study of Interpretive PracticesNotesIndex

"An important book that fills significant gaps in literary and historical scholarship on the reading, reception, publishing, and interpretation of antebellum fiction." (Barbara Hochman, Ben Gurion University)"