This cutting-edge Companion is a comprehensive resource for the study of the modern American novel. Published at a time when literary modernism is being thoroughly reassessed, it reflects current investigations into the origins and character of the movement as a whole. * Brings together 28 original essays from leading scholars * Allows readers to orient individual works and authors in their principal cultural and social contexts * Contributes to efforts to recover minority voices, such as those of African American novelists, and popular subgenres, such as detective fiction * Directs students to major relevant scholarship for further inquiry * Suggests the many ways that "modern", "American" and "fiction" carry new meanings in the twenty-first century