Being a Boy Again: Autobiography and the American Boy Book
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Jacobson, Marcia, PUBLISHER: Universong>itong>y Alabama Press, "Being a Boy Again" identifies a long>itong>erary genre that flourished between ong>theong> Civil War and World War I--ong>theong> American boy book. Jacobson distinguishes ong>theong> boy book tradong>itong>ion from ong>theong> didactic story for boys and ong>theong> developmental autobiography of childhood, describing ong>itong> as an autobiographical form that concentrates on boyhood alone. She discusses what gave rise to ong>theong> boy book, what forms ong>itong> took, what problems ong>itong> addressed, and finally, why ong>itong> disappeared. Jacobson finds her answers in ong>theong> widespread social and economic changes of ong>theong> second half of ong>theong> 19th century, as well as in ong>theong> personal crisis that inspired each of ong>theong> boy books. She argues that key works by such wrong>itong>ers as Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Booth Tarkington marked a nostalgic retreat to being a boy again in ong>theong> face of ong>theong> difficulties of being a man in 19th-century America.