Bohemia in America, 1858a 1920

Bohemia in America, 1858-1920 explores the construction and emergence of Bohemia in American literature and culture. Simultaneously a literary trope, a cultural nexus, and a socio-economic landscape, la vie bohème traveled to the United States from the Parisian Latin Quarter in the 1850s. At first the province of small artistic coteries, Bohemia soon inspired a popular vogue, embodied in restaurants, clubs, neighborhoods, novels, poems, and dramatic performances across the country. Levin's study follows la vie bohème from its earliest expressions in the U.S. until its explosion in Greenwich Village in the 1910s.

Although Bohemia was everywhere in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American culture, it has received relatively little scholarly attention. Bohemia in America, 1858-1920 fills this critical void, discovering and exploring the many textual and geographic spaces in which Bohemia was conjured.

Joanna Levin not only provides access to a neglected cultural phenomenon but also to a new and compelling way of charting the development of American literature and culture.

Author: Joanna Levin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 10/21/2009
Pages: 480
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780804760836

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 01/15/2010 pg. 20
Choice 05/01/2010
Reference and Research Bk News 05/01/2010 pg. 277

About the Author
Joanna Levin is Assistant Professor of English at Chapman University.