Spirits of America is the first book-length study of intoxication as represented in nineteenth-century American literature. Emphasizing the writings of such major figures as Emerson, Dickinson, Poe, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, and Stowe, Nicholas O. Warner combines literary analysis with sociohistorical perspectives to examine social and literary discourses of intoxicant use. Warner analyzes the literary treatment of alcoholism, drunkenness,...