Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen

R. Barton Palmer

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780521842211
• eBook ISBN: 9780511271199
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The process of translating works of literature to the silver screen is a rich field of study for both students and scholars of literature and cinema. The fourteen essays collected in this 2007 volume provide a survey of the important films based on, or inspired by, nineteenth-century American fiction, from James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans to Owen Wister's The Virginian. Many of the major works of the American canon are included, including The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick and Sister Carrie. The starting point of each essay is the literary text itself, moving on to describe specific aspects of the adaptation process, including details of production and reception. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book includes production stills and full filmographies. Together with its companion volume on twentieth-century fiction, the volume offers a comprehensive account of the rich tradition of American literature on screen.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 A very American fable: the making of a Mohicans adaptation
• 2 Romancing the letter: screening a Hawthorne classic
• 3 The movies in the Rue Morgue: adapting Edgar Allan Poe for the screen
• 4 Readapting Uncle Tom's Cabin
• 5 Screening authorship: Little Women on screen 1933–1994
• 6 Melville’s Moby-Dick and Hollywood
• 7 Screening male sentimental power in Ben-Hur
• 8 John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage
• 9 Translating Daisy Miller
• 10 Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady
• 11 The Europeans – and the Americans
• 12 Sister Carrie becomes Carrie
• 13 Hollywood and The Sea-Wolf
• 14 An untypical typicality: screening Owen Wister’s The Virginian
• Filmography
• Index