Introduction

Summary

Up to this time I had written only a few poems, and some articles descriptive of boy life on the prairie, although I was doing a good deal of thinking and lecturing on land reform, and was regarded as a very intense disciple of Herbert Spencer and Henry George – a singular combination, as I see it now. On my way westward, that summer day in 1887, rural life presented itself from an entirely new angle.

Hamlin Garland, 1922 “Author's Preface” to Main-Travelled Roads (first edition of Main-Travelled Roads published in 1890)

There would be a thousand matters – matters already the theme of prodigious reports and statistics – as to which I should have no sense whatever, and as to information about which my record would accordingly stand naked and unashamed. It should unfailingly be proved against me that my opportunity had found me incapable of information, incapable alike of receiving and imparting it; for then, and then only, would it be clearly enough attested that I had cared and understood.

Henry James, “Preface” to The American Scene (1907)

This book explores how certain key works of American literary realism articulate within themselves new ways of gaining intellectual prestige or distinction – new ways of gaining, that is, some degree of cultural recognition as unusually intelligent, discerning, sensitive, alert, knowledgeable, or even wise.