Crumbling Idols was published by Stone and Kimball in Chicago in 1894, and it is Garland’s critical manifesto — a series of twelve essays arguing for a revolution in American literature.
The “crumbling idols” are the literary conventions that Garland wanted to destroy: the worship of European models, the genteel tradition’s insistence on propriety and optimism, the centralization of literary culture in New York and Boston, and the assumption that literature should uplift and improve rather than truthfully represent. In their place, Garland advocates “veritism” — his term for a literature that tells the truth about local life, that draws its material from the writer’s own experience, and that is rooted in the specific landscapes, dialects, and social conditions of particular American regions.
The most important essay is “Local Color in Art,” which argues that the future of American literature lies not in the creation of a single national style but in the development of multiple regional literatures, each one faithful to its own place. Garland sees the Midwest, the South, the Far West, and New England as distinct cultural regions, each capable of producing a literature as rich and distinctive as the national literatures of Europe.
Collecting Crumbling Idols
First edition (Stone and Kimball, Chicago, 1894): Cloth binding. Scarce.
Market values:
- First edition: $80–$250
- Later editions: $15–$35