"The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman" and Other Queer Nineteenth-Century Short Stories

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 2016

"The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman" and Other Queer Nineteenth-Century Short Stories

Edited by: Christopher Looby

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293357

Overview
Contents

About this book

"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the nineteenth century—the century when, it has been said, sexuality as such (and various taxonomized sexual identities) were invented—is the period when American short stories were invented, and when they were the queerest."—Christopher Looby, from the Introduction

A man in small-town America wears the clothing of his wife and sisters; satisfied at last that he has "a perfect suit of garments appropriate for my sex," he commits suicide, asking only that he be buried dressed as a woman. A country maid has a passionate summer relationship with an heiress, the memory of which sustains her for the next forty years. A girl is carried by a strong wind to a place where she discovers that everything is made of candy, including the "queer people," whom she licks and eats. If these are not the kinds of stories we expect to find in nineteenth-century American literature, it is perhaps because we have been looking in the wrong places.

The stories gathered here are written by a diverse assortment of writers—women and men, obscure and famous: Herman Melville, Willa Cather, Henry James, and Louisa May Alcott, among others. Exploring the vagaries of gender identity, erotic desire, and affectional attachments that do not map easily onto present categories of sex and gender, they celebrate, mourn, and question the different modes of embodiment and forgotten styles of pleasure of nineteenth-century America.

Author / Editor information

Christopher Looby is Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction: Queer Short Stories in Nineteenth-Century America Christopher Looby Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Editor’s Note Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxv
Part I. Queer Places
The Child’s Champion (1841) Walt Whitman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
A South-Sea Idyl (1869) Charles Warren Stoddard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
The Haunted Valley (1871) Ambrose Bierce Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
Felipa (1876) Constance Fenimore Woolson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
My Lorelei: A Heidelberg Romance (1880) Octave Thanet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
Part II. Queer Genders
The Bachelors (1836) Samuel L. Knapp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman (1857) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
Two Friends (1887) Mary Wilkins Freeman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson (c. 1900–1903) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament (1905) Willa Cather Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Part III. Queer Attachments
Twin-Love (1871) Bayard Taylor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Out of the Deeps (1872) Elizabeth Stoddard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
In the Tules (1895) Bret Harte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Martha’s Lady (1897) Sarah Orne Jewett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
The Heart’s Desire (1908) Sui Sin Far Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220
Part IV. Queer Things
I and My Chimney (1856) Herman Melville Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
The Candy Country (1885) Louisa May Alcott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Dave’s Neckliss (1889) Charles W. Chesnutt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
Schopenhauer in the Air (1894) Sadakichi Hartmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Lilacs (1896) Kate Chopin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313

Language: English
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages
- Main content: 344

eBook

Published: April 10, 2017
ISBN: 9780812293357