Howells and the Age of Realism (1954), by Everett Carter, provides discussion of author and literary critic William Dean Howells and his significance to the development of Realism in American literature.

Kate Chopin is one of the most important realist writers of nineteenth-century fiction. Her most famous work is The Awakening (1899), a story about a woman's self-discovery and growing sexuality in the American South.

Introduction to Russian Realism (1965), by Ernest J. Simmons, is a collection of essays on Realism in Russian literature and includes essays on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov.

The Alienation of Reason: A History of Positivist Thought (1968), by Leszek Kolakowski, provides a history of positivism in nineteenthcentury thought. Positivism was an important influence on the development of the realist movement in literature.

Mark Twain, the pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was a pioneer in the use of realistic...