Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-230) and index.
Contents
Introduction: "continuing bonds" and nineteenth-century American authorship -- Hatty's grief: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the death of Charley -- Lincoln's grief: Willie, Antietam, and the "meditation on the divine will" -- Howells's grief: Winny and the fur-lined overcoat -- Mark Twain's grief: Susy, theodicy, and "systemless system" -- Du Bois's grief: Burghardt and cultural trauma -- Epilogue: "surrounded by a cloud of witnesses": recovering the bonds with the dead.