American Claimants: The Transatlantic Romance, c. 1820-1920

This is a work of literary criticism, and also literary and cultural history. It identifies a transatlantic literary form, the American Claimant narrative. The book traces the origins of the American claimant back to lost-heir romance, and then demonstrates its importance and pervasiveness in the nineteenth century, arguing that it was equally (but differently) significant in Britain, the United States, and South Africa, and in a huge variety of cultural forms–theatrical comedy, children’s fiction, and antislavery periodicals, as well as in canonical literary fiction, such as The Marble Faun and The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.