The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Rating:
Summary: Caveat lector: do NOT buy this book
Review: I began reading this book with great anticipation, looking forward to a pleasant evening learning more about a sadly-neglected subject; women's writing in 19th century America.

About two thirds down the first page of the historical timeline, one eyebrow went up. Three seconds later the other eyebrow joined the first eyebrow. By page 20 I was ready to ask for my money back.

This book is riddled with so many errors of fact, grammar and spelling (a character in one of Mrs. E.D. E. N. Southworth's novels is described as "fighting duals")that I can't believe it made it past the fact-checker and the copy-editor. I have to ask myself the question: If the editors couldn't be bothered to catch these minor, silly mistakes, how can I have any confidence that the rest of the information they are imparting is accurate?

Messrs Bauer and Gould should be ashamed of themselves for allowing such a slipshod piece of work to make it into print.