Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850-1920

Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. x, 394 pages, illustrations; 24 cm. Tight, clean copy. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. "'A true poem,' Walt Whitman proclaimed in 1852, 'is the daily newspaper'--and American culture was never the same again. Like a blast of cold air in a stuffy drawing room, Whitman's campaign to give artistic representation to gritty reality shocked the genteel artistic elite of the 1850s; but the brassy poet's efforts helped generate a revolution in American life and thought. Four decades later, Willa Cather could declare that the 'public demands realism, and they will have it.' In Facing Facts, David Shi provides the most comprehensive history to date of the rise of realism in American culture. He vividly captures the character and sweep of this all-encompassing movement--ranging from Winslow Homer to the rise of the Ash Can school, from Whitman to Henry James to Theodore Dreiser. / David Shi is President of Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina. He is the author of The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.