Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature...
Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xi, 350 pp. Publisher's blue cloth with gilt stamped spine, fine in fine dust jacket. Internally clean and bright. $20. * An analysis of true-crime literature in early America and its role in shaping popular culture. Cohen traces the shift in criminal narratives from early Puritan execution sermons, which framed deviance as an occasion for religious repentance, to the sensationalized, secular journalistic treatments of the nineteenth century. This work utilizes an extensive array of broadsides, pamphlets, trial transcripts, and crime reports from early New England to explore how shifting legal, theological, and social frameworks altered the public consumption of crime and punishment.
Price: $20.00
Book number 87042