Where My Heart Is Turning Ever

Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876

Title Details

Pages: 286

Illustrations: 1 b&w image

Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 11/15/2020

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5881-9

List Price: $34.95

eBook

Pub Date: 11/15/2020

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5886-4

List Price: $34.95

Where My Heart Is Turning Ever

Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876

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  • Reviews
Especially impressive is the innovative structure of this work, which interlaces the tasks of literary and cultural historian, editor, and literary critic. . . . Where My Heart Is Turning Ever is at once an impressive study and a genuinely good read.

—Priscilla Wald, Journal of American History

By examining congressional debates alongside magazine fiction, Diffley shows that they inhabited the same rhetorical universe and underwent similar evolutions.

—Stuart McConnell, American Historical Review

An original attempt to connect the popular fiction with the definitions of liberty that emerged from the war. . . . Writ large, Diffley essentially wants to explain how the destruction of slavery did not also lead to the legal emancipation and enfranchisement of women.

—Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

Timely and much-needed . . . Diffley deserves much praise for calling attention to this long-forgotten literature and its unprecedented examination.

—Jacquelyn S. Nelson, Historian

Rigorously researched and elegantly written . . . In her close and quite scholarly analysis, Diffley suggests that three thematic genres defined the period: 'Old Homestead' narratives, 'Romances,' and 'Adventures.'

—David Abrahamson, Journalism History

An extremely well-crafted study, concentrating on some three hundred narratives.

—S. M. Grant, Journal of American Studies

Scholars have largely accepted the idea that not much fiction came out of the Civil War. In part, that judgment has always meant fiction that critics consider worthy of treatment as outstanding literature. But to a degree it has also been taken literally as meaning not much fiction was written. Fortunately, Diffley's work will forever explode that myth.

—Louis P. Masur, Reviews in American History

A corrective to the all-too-common view that little significant literature emerged in response to the American Civil War.

—Timothy Sweet, College Literature

About the Author/Editor

KATHLEEN DIFFLEY is an associate professor of English at the University of Iowa and director of the Civil War Caucus at the M/MLA. She is the author of Where My Heart Is Turning Ever: Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861–1876 and the coeditor of Visions of Glory: The Civil War in Word and Image (both Georgia). She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.