House of the Black Ring
Product details
- ISBN 9780271054209
- Weight: 431g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 07 Jun 2012
- Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Fred Lewis Pattee, long regarded as the father of American literary study, also wrote fiction. Originally published in 1905 by Henry Holt, The House of the Black Ring was Pattee’s second novel—a local-color romance set in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. The book’s plot is driven by family feud, forbidden love, and a touch of the supernatural. This new edition makes this novel accessible to new generations of modern-day readers. General readers will find in The House of the Black Ring a thriller that preserves details of rural life and language during the late nineteenth century. Scholars will read it as an expression of cultural anxiety and change in the decades after the Civil War.
An introduction by poet and essayist Julia Spicher Kasdorf situates the novel within the context of social and literary history, as well as Pattee’s own biography, and provides a compelling argument for its importance, not only as a literary artifact or record of local customs, but also as a reflection of Pattee’s own story intertwined with the history of Penn State at the turn of the twentieth century. Joshua Brown draws on his expertise in Pennsylvania German ethno-linguistics to interpret the dialect writing and to give readers a clearer view of the customs and regionalisms depicted in the book.
Fred Lewis Pattee was Professor and Head of the Department of English at the Pennsylvania State College (now the Pennsylvania State University). Pattee is regarded as the first “Professor of American Literature,” having published the groundbreaking works “Is There an American Literature?” in 1896 and A History of American Literature Since 1870 in 1915.
Julia Spicher Kasdorf is Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Penn State. In 2009 Penn State Press released a paperback edition of her collection of essays, The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life.
Joshua R. Brown is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.
