In America, Henry James & Mark Twain, among others, wrote fiction devoted to an accurate representation of American life, reflecting the changes and problems in American society at the time. While romanticists followed emotion, the inner world, the idealized past or the supernatural; and naturalists were interested in how the conditions of society influence human action (determinism), realists centred their attention on the ordinary (everyday life, lower classes), the complexities of human nature, moral dilemmas and social issues.
Whereas for the Romantic American writers the typical features of romance were the crime, religion, ghosts, magic, which are used as the basis of a tale of terror, Twain and James reflected the social tragedies and the connections with the European continent.