Robert Levine has examined the American romance in a historical context. His book offers a fresh reading of the genre, establishing its importance to American culture between the founding of the republic and the Civil war.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. 'The defencelessness of her condition': Villainy and Vulnerability in Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond; 2. 'Souless Corporation;: Oligarchy and the Countersubversive Presence in James Fenimore Cooper's The Bravo; 3. 'A confusion of popish and protestant emblems': Insiders and Outsiders in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance; 4. 'Follow you Leader': Captains and Mutineers in Herman Melville's Benito Cereno; Epilogue; Notes; Index.