pt. 1. Reading reading historically. Historical hermeneutics, reception theory, and the social conditions of reading in antebellum America ; Interpretive strategies and informed reading in the antebellum public sphere
pt. 2. Contextual receptions, reading experiences, and patterns of response: four case studies. "These days of double dealing": informed response, reader appropriation, and the tales of Poe ; Multiple audiences and Melville's fiction: receptions, recoveries, and regressions ; Response as (re)construction: the reception of Catharine Sedgwick's novels ; Mercurial readings: the making and unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'
Conclusion: American literary history and the historical study of interpretive practices.