Michael J. Blouin, PhD, is an Associate Professor in English and the Humanities at Milligan University. His areas of interest include nineteenth-century American literature, politics, and popular culture. He and co-author Tony Magistrale were recently awarded the Carl Bode prize for best essay from the Journal of American Culture in 2019. He was also invited to serve as guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of Popular Culture entitled "Neoliberalism and Popular Culture" (2018). Blouin's other works include Stephen King and American Politics (2021), as well as Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis of American Liberalism, 1972-2017 (2018). He received his doctorate in American Studies from Michigan State University in 2012. He currently resides in East Tennessee with his wife and two daughters.

1. Introduction: The Campaign Biography as American Literature
2. Presidential Biographies and the Knickerbockers
3. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the (Im)perfect President
4. William Dean Howells and the Real American President
5. Interlude: Wolcott Balestier and the Candidate's Secret
6. Lew Wallace, Benjamin Harrison, and the Historical Romance
7. Jacob Riis, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Art of Adoration
8. Rose Wilder Land and the Frontier Candidate
9. The Campaign Autobiography