Contents
Introduction: The Irving Brothers at the Park Theatre, 1802
1. “No Garden of Thought, nor Elysium of Fancy”: Washington Irving’s The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
2. The Rites of Pure Brotherhood: Fraternalism and Performance in Poe and Lippard
3. “The Rule of Men Entirely Great”: Richelieu, Ritual, and Republicanism in Melville’s Diptychs
4. The “Child of Nature,” or the “Wonder of the Age”: Melville’s Child Prodigies
5. “Contending for an Empire”: Performing Sincerity in Hawthorne’s New England
Epilogue: Louisa May Alcott’s Theatrical Realism
Notes
Bibliography
Index