Offers a broad critical survey of a significant form of American fiction that has long been in need of critical attention. Tuttleton describes the form, elucidating its style, structures, character types, and ideological postures, showing how various important writers have brought the form to life.

(Key Words: Manners, Edith Wharton, American Society, Religion, Henry James, John O'Hara, Louis Auchincloss, William Dean Howells, James W. Tuttleton, James Fenimore Cooper, Sinclair Lewis, John Marquand, F. Scott Fitzgerald).