At a time when realism is all but monopolizing literature, one experiences a sensation of delighted relief in encountering "Show Boat." It is gorgeously romantic—not in the flamboyant and artificial manner of the historical romance …; not staggering beneath a weight of costume and local color. "Show Boat" comes as a spirited, full-breasted, tireless story, romantic because it is too alive to be what the realists call real; because it bears within itself a spirit of life which we seek rather than have; because it makes a period and mode of existence live again, not actually different from what they were, but more alluring than they could have been. "Show Boat" is romantic not because its people and events violate any principle of possibility, but because they express a principle of selection….

After the days of Mark Twain, the Mississippi holds small place in American literature. Now it...