"... thoughtful, engaging... [Weber's] kind of literary history succeeds where the more fashionable kind often fails: It sends the reader back to the books themselves." --The Bloomsbury Review "Weber... completes an important chapter in a literary history that closes with the advent of modernism... " --American Literature "... well-written, balanced, and extraordinarily sure-footed account... " --The Annals of Iowa "... this book is a must for scholars of American literature and regional culture at all levels and for general readers as well."nbsp;--Choice "... a fascinating account of the Midwest's literary day in the sun."nbsp;--Michigan Historical Review "[Weber's] prose is lucid, cogent, engaging. And his insights into the problems of regionalism, the creations of the midwestern movement, and the places and people of the midwestern tapestry bring a new coherence to this neglected literature."nbsp;--Joseph F. Trimmer From the 1870s to the 1920s, Midwestern writers were at the center of American literature. Here Weber illuminates the sense of lost promise that gives rise to the elegiac note struck in many Midwestern works; he also addresses the deeply divided feeling about the region revealed in the contrary desires to abandon and to celebrate.