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Mechanic Accents:Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America
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“One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction.” —Terry Eagleton
Mechanic Accents is a widely acclaimed study of American popular fiction and working-class culture. Combining Marxist literary theory with American labor history, Michael Denning explores what happened when, in the nineteenth century, working people began to read cheap novels and the “fiction question” became a class question. In a new afterword, Denning locates his study within the context of current debates on class and cultural studies.
Reviews
One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available.
A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity.
Mechanic Accents abounds with new ways to think about America’s ubiquitous popular culture ... [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat.
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An impressive and excellent book ... removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture.
Labor History