In the following chapter from Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (1986), Davidson discusses the popularity of sentimental novels and the social issues upon which they comment—including marriage, sexuality, childbearing, and domesticity.

In the following essay, Davidson argues that some domestic novels ironically subvert typical social constructions of femininity.'

In this essay, Tompkins defends the domestic novel against the common criticism that it portrays a narrow, trivial, and overly idealistic world. Only the footnoted material pertaining to the essay below has been reprinted in the "Notes" section.

In the essay that follows, Lang contends that the sentimental novel displaces class issues by reducing them to race and gender issues.

In the essay that follows, Douglas asserts that the complex politics of sentimental novels emerges from a combination of American capitalism and Calvinism.

In the essay that follows, Kelley claims that authors of the domestic novel simultaneously glorified and protested women 's domestic roles.

In the following excerpt, Ryan contends that the cult of domesticity, with its emphasis on mothers as the protectors of morality, linked the sentimental novel to the abolitionist movement.

In the following chapter from his The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789-1860, Brown criticizes the sentimental novel for its idealism and consequent neglect of social and political issues.

In the following essay, Cowie summarizes common plot elements of nineteenth-century sentimental novels, and argues that they prescribed conservative feminine values.

In the following excerpt, Brodhead provides a psychological account of internalized moral discipline by a paradigmatic sentimental character. Only those footnotes pertaining to the following excerpt have been reprinted in the "Notes" section.

In the following essay, Papashvily argues that the domestic novel constitutes a more subtle but equally powerful form of resistance to nineteenth-century patriarchy than the 1848 Seneca Falls convention.