SOURCE: Eby, Clare. “Domesticating Naturalism: The Example of The Pit.” Studies in American Fiction 22, no. 2 (autumn 1994): 149-68.

In the following essay, Eby offers a critical overview of The Pit, which was Norris's final novel.

Behind the release of the new paperback edition of The Pit in the summer of 1994 lies a disagreement between the editor and publisher over the cover art for it. The editor, Joseph McElrath, Jr., originally selected an art nouveau print by the graphic artist Alphonse Mucha, perhaps best known for his posters of Sarah Bernhardt. Plate 47 from Mucha's Documents Decoratifs (published in 1902, the same year as The Pit) is a vertical composition featuring a voluptuous woman with dark hair piled on top of her head. Her torso and legs are covered by a rich-looking teal wrap that spills out in sensuous disarray over the ornamental border beneath. The woman's breasts are uncovered, one hand...