American Reaction to 1830s French Fiction
FAIN: FT-52266-04
Gary Williams
University of Idaho (Moscow, ID 83844-9803)
My work on Julia Ward Howe has made me aware of the importance she and other antebellum American writers attached to the early novels of the French writer George Sand. Nearly 40 years have passed since scholars have examined materials recording the impact of Sand and other French writers of the 1830s on American literary production. I wish to investigate this phenomenon in light of previously-unscrutinized materials, both manuscripts and print sources. I will spend my grant period reading at the NY Public Library, the NY Historical Society, and Harvard’s Houghton Library (resources not easily available to an Idaho-based scholar). I will write an article-length study and lay groundwork for a sabbatical application.