Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction

In this comprehensive and insightful study, Christian K. Messenger contends that American writers have always created characters at play in the sure knowledge that to be active in sport in America is to be in touch with its people, their traditions, and their fantasy lives.

This is the first inclusive critical study of sport in American fiction with chapters on individual authors such as Hawthorne, Lardner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, as well as studies of sport in the literature of the frontier and in boys' formula fiction. A work of literary criticism, Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction also draws on the cultural history of American sport and leisure and on a century of American literature.

Christian K. Messenger is assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois.

This is a solid book, well conceived, well executed, and a contribution of more than passing value to the field of cultural and literary history.

The most significant and comprehensive book to date about play, game, and sport in American literature and culture. Solidly grounded in intellectual and social histor, this book analyzes the play spirit while discussing the background and 20th century manifestations of these types: the popular sports hero, the school sports hero, and the modern ritual sports hero.