Edited by Kent Baxter, Associate Professor of English at California State University, Northridge, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include Romeo and Juliet; Little Women; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; ...and the earth did not devour him; Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; Jane Eyre; The Catcher in the Rye; and The Odyssesy. Among the contributors are Vincent Cheng, Gregory Eiselein, Jane Hedley, Heather James, and Steven Mintz.