erary constructions of the nature or "reality" of courtship. They knew that
he or she who "owned" or most effectively interpreted the evolutionary
past could claim the greatest right to the literary present. And they showed
that the Darwinian book of life could yield as many conflicting and often
dogmatic interpretations as the Bible. ²

To the extent that I succeed in making my case that The Descent of
Man and the theory of sexual selection figure so importantly in American
fiction from 1871 to 1926, I imply needed redefinitions of American liter-
ary realism, "social Darwinism," and "modernism" in American fiction. ³

Because I want to make the case that this all began in 1871--long be-
fore the period ("naturalism," in the 1890s) when Darwin is thought to
have first influenced American literature in significant ways--I provide ex-
tensive studies of William Dean Howells, Henry James, and others who
are seldom discussed in reference to Darwin. And because the case has
already been made for the Darwinian influence in Mark Twain's career and
in those of the naturalists (though not in reference to the theory of sexual
selection), I include nothing here on Twain, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris,
Jack London, or Theodore Dreiser.

Finally, I would suggest that readers interested in the literature of
this period will find it well worth the time to examine, at least, Darwin's
tables of contents to The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. The contents, with
their useful outlines to each chapter, along with Darwin's indexes to these
books, should provide readers with an immediate sense of why novelists
were attracted to many specific passages in these texts. For here, in refer-
ence to human nature, Darwin developed the note he had struck in the
last sentence of the Origin of Species--that "There is grandeur in this view
of life"--and novelists like Edith Wharton eagerly followed into what she
called "the wonder-world of nineteenth century science." ⁴

Recognizing that my emphasis on Howells in the rather lengthy Chap-
ters 1 and 2 might well appeal only or mainly to students of Howells and
the early years of American literary realism, I would invite other readers

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