 The first aspect is the time in which the book was written.With Webster having furthered the development of the American dialect with his 1828 publication of the first American dictionary, America was still gaining its own literary voice in 1850 when "The Wide, Wide World" was published.It is readily apparent from the first page that this novel's style is archaic with lines such as "Driven thus to her own resources, Ellen betook herself to the window and sought amusement there."