Romances of the Republic

Samuels looks at the relations among sexual, political, and familial rhetoric in American writing from 1790 to the 1850s. With a special focus on the depictions of the American Revolution and the use of the family as a model and instrument of political forces, she examines how the historical novel formalizes some of the more extravagant features of the gothic novel while incorporating a sentimental vision of the family.