A History of American Literature Since 1870

Pattee's 1891 volume stands as one of the earliest attempts to codify American literature as its own discipline. Written when American letters was still forging its identity apart from European traditions, this history traces the emergence of a distinctly national voice in the aftermath of the Civil War. Pattee divides the century into three periods: the Knickerbocker era of early New York writers, the New England dominance of Emerson and Hawthorne's generation, and the 'National Period' that began around 1870, when American writers finally escaped the shadow of British literary fashion to address their own landscapes, voices, and experiences. The book is less a narrative than a framework, an early scholar's attempt to impose order on a young nation's literary output and prove that American literature deserved serious critical attention. For readers interested in the history of literary study itself, or in understanding how American literature was first constructed as an academic subject, Pattee's work remains a revealing artifact of late Victorian scholarship.