Author: By Andrea Goulet Andrea Goulet takes the study of the novel into the realm of the visual by situating it in the context of nineteenth-century scientific and philosophical discourse about the nature of sight. She argues that French realism, detective fiction, science fiction, and literature of the fantastic from 1830 to 1910 reflected competition between two modern visual modes: a not-yet-outdated idealism and an empiricism that located truth in the body. More specifically, the book argues that key narrative forms of the nineteenth century were shaped by a set of scientific debates: between idealism and materialism in Honore Balzac's Comedie humaine, between deduction and induction in early French detective fiction, and between objective vision and subjective vision in the optogram fictions of Jules Verne and others.Goulet aims to revise critical views on the modern novel in a number of ways. For instance, although many literary studies focus on the impact of cinema, photography, and painting, Optiques asserts the materialist bases of realism by establishing a genealogy of popular fictional genres as fundamentally optical, that is, as articulated according to bodily notions of sight.With its chronological and interdisciplinary scope, Optiques stands to contribute an important chapter to the study of literary modernity in its scientific context.

Author: Kathleen Waters Sander Chartered in 1827 as the countrys first railroad, the legendary Baltimore and Ohio played a unique role in the nations great railroad drama and became the model for American railroading. John W. Garrett, who served as president of the B&O from 1858 to 1884, ranked among the great power brokers of the time. In this gripping and well-researched account, historian Kathleen Waters Sander tells the story of the B&Os beginning and its unprecedented plan to build a rail line from Baltimore over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River, considered to be the most ambitious engineering feat of its time. The B&Os success ignited railroad fever and helped to catapult railroading to Americas most influential industry in the nineteenth century.Taking the B&O helm during the railroads expansive growth in the 1850s, Garrett soon turned his attention to the demands of the Civil War. Sander explains how, despite suspected Southern sympathies, Garrett became one of President Abraham Lincoln's most trusted confidantes and strategists, making the B&O available for transporting Northern troops and equipment to critical battles. The Confederates attacked the B&O 143 times, but could not put Mr. Lincolns Road out of business. After the war, Garrett became one of the first of the famed Gilded Age tycoons, rising to unimagined power and wealth. Sander explores howwhen he was not fighting fierce railroad wars with competitorsGarrett steered the B&O into highly successful entrepreneurial endeavors, quadrupling track mileage to reach important commercial markets, jumpstarting Baltimores moribund postwar economy, and constructing lavish hotels in Western Maryland to open tourism in the region. Chronicling the epic technological transformations of the nineteenth century, from rudimentary commercial trade and primitive transportation westward to the railroads indelible impact on the country and the economy, John W. Garrett and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is a vivid account of Garretts twenty-six-year reign. Sander brings to life the brazen risk-taking, clashing of oversized egos, and opulent lifestyles of the tycoons of the Gilded Age. Drawing from the manuscript collections of the B&O Museum, the Library of Congress, and numerous historical and railroad societies, this richly illustrated portrait of one mans undaunted efforts to improve the B&O and advance its technology will appeal to general readers and railroad enthusiasts alike.