Focusing on key works of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American literary realism, Phillip Barrish traces the emergence of new ways of gaining intellectual prestige - that is, new ways of gaining some degree of cultural recognition. Through extended readings of works by Henry James, William Dean Howells, Abraham Cahan, and Edith Wharton, Barrish emphasizes the differences between realist modes of cultural authority and those associated with the rise of the social sciences, and examines the impact of realism as a genre on the aesthetic, the self, masculinity and narrative more generally. Barrish also argues that, understanding the dynamics of intellectual status in realist literature also provides new analytic purchase on intellectual prestige in recent critical theory from such figures as Lionel Trilling, Paul de Man, John Guillory, and Judith Butler. This book is the first extended treatment of a genre, realism, central to our understanding of American literature.