Being a Boy Again: Autobiography and the American Boy Book
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Jacobson, Marcia, PUBLISHER: University Alabama Press, "Being a ong>Boyong> Again" identifies a literary genre that flourished between ong>theong> Civil War and World War I--ong>theong> American ong>boyong> book. Jacobson distinguishes ong>theong> ong>boyong> book tradition from ong>theong> didactic story for ong>boyong>s and ong>theong> developmental autobiography of childhood, describing it as an autobiographical form that concentrates on ong>boyong>hood alone. She discusses what gave rise to ong>theong> ong>boyong> book, what forms it took, what problems it addressed, and finally, why it 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> ong>boyong> books. She argues that key works by such writers as Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Booth Tarkington marked a nostalgic retreat to being a ong>boyong> again in ong>theong> face of ong>theong> difficulties of being a man in 19th-century America.