"A writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism; successfully published within her own lifetime; esteemed by such writers as William Dean Howells and Nathaniel Hawthorne; and situated at the epicenter of New York's literary world, Elizabeth Stoddard has nonetheless been almost excluded from literary memory and importance. This book seeks to understand why. By reconsidering Stoddard's life and work and her current marginal status in the evolving canon of American literary studies, it raises important questions about women's writing in the 19th century and canon formation in the 20th century."

"Essays in this study locate Stoddard in the context of her contemporaries, such as Dickinson and Hawthorne, while others situate her work in the context of major 19th-century cultural forces and issues, among them the Civil War and Reconstruction, race and ethnicity, anorexia and female invalidism, nationalism and localism, and incest."--Jacket.