Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America

“One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available.”—Terry Eagleton“A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity.”—Fredric Jameson“Mechanic Accents abounds with new ways to think about America’s ubiquitous popular culture … [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat.”—Christine Stansell, Voice Literary Supplement“An impressive and excellent book … removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture.”—Labor History