Sarah Corse's analysis of nearly two hundred American and Canadian novels offers a new theory of national literatures. Demonstrating that national canon formation occurs in tandem with nation-building, and that canonical novels play a symbolic role in this, Sarah Corse accounts for cross-national literary differences, addresses issues of mediation and representation in theories of "reflection," and illuminates the historically constructed nature of the relationship between literature and the nation-state.

In this way, she also shows that there is no "natural" pattern of national literary difference across literary types, and, specifically, that high-culture national literatures are selected to appear different from other novels. By contrast, popular-culture bestsellers are best understood as mass market commodities for the largest and least differentiated audience.