Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Contents V
3. Preface VII
4. Part I. Marriage 1
5. 1. A Genre and Its Absorbed Audience 3
6. 2. Fantasy in the Novel 7
7. 3. Love-Interest 15
8. 4. Home Sweet Home 21
9. 5. Domestic Bitterness as Presented in Popular Women's Novels 34
10. 6. John William De Forest vs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 38
11. 7. Henry James and W. D. Howells as Sissies 56
12. 8. The Portrait of a Lady 66
13. 9. Their Wedding Journey 80
14. 10. A Modern Instance 86
15. 11. Realism 103
16. Part II. Male and Female Humor
17. 12. Easygoing Men and Dressy Ladies 115
18. 13. Taking Down the Big One: From Frontier Boaster to Deadpan Loser to Boy 126
19. 14. Petticoat Humor 140
20. 15. Funny Women 157
21. 16. Funny Tomboys 172
22. 17. Penelope Lapham in The Rise of Silas Lapham 184
23. Part III. W. D. Howells and American Masculinity
24. 18. The Male Risk 199
25. 19. That Old Gang of Mine 206
26. 20. Ambition vs. Selflessness 220
27. 21. “The Best Men” 235
28. Part IV. The Gentleman of Shalott: Henry James and American Masculinity
29. 22. The Plot with a Secret 251
30. 23. The Boy Who Could Not Become a Man 256
31. 24. “Observing”: The View from James's Room in the House of Fiction 274
32. 25. Who Made James the Modern American Master, and Why? 289
33. Notes 303
34. Index 365