A fascinating book . . . Wilson analyzes how each man responded, for his own reasons and in his own ways, to the literary professionalism of the time and how all four eventually became disillusioned with their careers.

—New England Quarterly

Wilson’s book is less a reinvention than it is a reenvisioning. . . . In a compact chronicle and analysis he reveals how newspapers, literary journals, and book publishing adapted to a revolutionary economics challenging the genteel manners of the Gilded Age and initiated a highly competitive, engineered mass-marketing of news, information, and fiction.

—Modern Fiction Studies

Demonstrates forcefully the intimate and continuing connections between reporting and the practice and themes of American fiction.

—Times Literary Supplement