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Sedycias fills a significant gap in his comparative study of three major works: Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (American), Aluisio Azevedo's O cortico (Brazilian), and Federico Gamboa's Santa (Mexican). Sedycias investigates certain aspects of discontinuity between European naturalistic ideology and literary practices in the New World. He considers questions of cultural and religious backgrounds and also employs Rene Girard's theory of mimetic desire. All three works share an important common denominator: they present a prostitute as a major character and Sedycias examines attitudes towards the "fallen woman", desire, and religious salvation with this theme. Plot, structure and language provide traditional modes of comparative study (Sedycias translates all languages in the book himself) while the author questions the general assumptions regarding naturalistic literature and draws his conclusions regarding similarities and individual components of each work. Contents: I. The Prostitute in New World Naturalistic Ficiton: 1. Stephen Crane's Maggie: The Fallen woman as Religious Allegory; 2. Aluisio Azevedo's Representation of the Prostitute in O cortico; 3. Beyond Naturalism: Frederico Gamboa and the Mexican background of Santa; II. A Girardian Exegesis of the "Roman Experimental": 4. Rene Girard and the Concept of Mimetic Desire; 5. Memesis and Crisis in Maggie; 6. Violent Symmetries: Self and Other in O cortico; 7. Federico Gamboa as Geometrician of Desire; III. Conclusions: 8. Cultural Perspectives in New World Naturalistic Fiction; 9. Mimetic Desire and the Naturalistic Novel.