Cover page -- Becoming Modern: New Nineteenth-Century Studies -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- One: Nineteenth-Century American Fiction and the Inevitable, (Im)possible, Maddening Importance of the Gift -- Part One: Sacrifices of a Nation -- Two: The New Republic and the Aporia of Responsibility: Prudent Economy, Speculation, and (Ir)responsible Sacrifice in Hannah Foster's Coquette -- Three: Self-Sacrifice or Preservation: Lydia Maria Child's Reflections on the Gift in Hobomok and The American Frugal Housewife -- Part Two: Panic Fictions -- Four: Panics, Gifts, and Faith in Susan Warner's Wide, Wide World -- Five: From Grateful Slave to Greedy Banker: William Wells Brown's Clotel and the Circulation of Shinplaster Fiction -- Six: From Typee to The Confidence-Man: Herman Melville and the (Im)possibility of the Gift -- Part Three: Fading Gifts and Rising Profits -- Seven: Gifts and Markets: Grotesque Economic Confusions in William Dean Howells's Portrayal of the "Incorporation of America" -- Eight: Enigma and Precision: The Golden Tooth and the Horrors of the End of the Gift in Frank Norris's McTeague -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.