The Modern American Novel is an indispensable handbook for all those interested in the novel and American culture. This new, completely revised and updated edition of Malcolm Bradbury's examination of the modern American novel offers an extensive account of the multiplicity and variety of contemporary American fiction, while providing a clear critical survey of the fictional scene from the 1890s to 1991.

In this broad study, Malcolm Bradbury traces the development of naturalism and impressionism, the growth of modernism, the realism of the thirties and forties, to the postmodern experiment of the sixties, and the work of contemporary American writers.