Evolution and 'the Sex Problem': American Narratives during the Eclipse of Darwinism

A noteworthy investigation of the Darwinian element in American fiction from the realist through the Freudian eras

In Evolution and “the Sex Problem” author Bert Bender argues that Darwin’s theories of sexual selection and of the emotions are essential elements in American fiction from the late 1800s through the 1950s, particularly during the Freudian era and the years surrounding the Scopes trial.

Bender contends that novelists with different social points of view explored “the sex problem,”...