Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction: "Continuing Bonds" and Nineteenth-Century American Authorship; 1. Hatty's Grief: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Death of Charley; 2. Lincoln's Grief: Willie, Antietam, and the "Meditation on the Divine Will"; 3. Howells's Grief: Winny and the Fur-Lined Overcoat; 4. Mark Twain's Grief: Susy, Theodicy, and "Systemless System"; 5. Du Bois's Grief: Burghardt and Cultural Trauma; Epilogue: "Surrounded by a Cloud of Witnesses": Recovering the Bonds with the Dead; Notes; Bibliography; Index