Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America / Edition 2

by Michael Denning

Overview

Mechanic Accents is a widely acclaimed study of American popular fiction and working-class culture. Combining Marxist literary theory with American labor history, Michael Denning explores what happened when, in the nineteenth century, working people began to read cheap novels and the “fiction question” became a class question. In a new afterword, Denning locates his study within the context of current debates on class and cultural studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781859842508
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	09/17/1998
Series:	Haymarket Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	867,630
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Michael Denning teaches American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of Mechanic Accents, Cover Stories, Culture in the Age of Three Worlds, and The Cultural Front.

Editorial Reviews

One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available.”—Terry Eagleton

“A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity.”—Fredric Jameson

“Mechanic Accents abounds with new ways to think about America’s ubiquitous popular culture ... [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat.”—Christine Stansell, Voice Literary Supplement

“An impressive and excellent book ... removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture.”—Labor History

From the Publisher