Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace: The Role of Newspaper Syndicates in America, 1860–1900 (Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History) - Hardcover

Johanningsmeier, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521497108 ISBN 13: 9780521497107

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Conventional literary history has virtually ignored the role of newspaper syndicates in publishing some of the most famous nineteenth-century writers. Henry James, Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain were among those who offered their early fiction to "Syndicates", firms that subsequently sold the work to newspapers across America for simultaneous, first-time publication. Charles Johanningsmeier shows how the economic practicalities of the syndicate system governed the consumption and interpretation of various literary texts. His study revises the conception of traditional literary history by examining the ordinary reader's response to some of the major writers of the nineteenth century.

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Review:

"Johanningsmeier's work is well written and documented....Recommended for upper-division students and scholars interested in literature and journalism in the second half of the 19th century." J.W. Parins, Choice

"For lucidity of writing and thoroughness and accuracy of research, this study deserves high praise. It will no doubt be an important resource for other scholars of publishing as well as for critics exploring the publishing histories of particular writers who published in syndicates. The book tackles the nitty-gritty details of negotiating procedures, forms of transport, and forms of technology that shaped the business." Nancy Glazener, American Literature

"...we can be grateful for this lively and judicious recall of a largely unappreciated aspect of the democratization of literary culture during the Gilded Age." Robert A. Colby, Publishing Reasearch Quarterly

"Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace provids and excellent, clearly written account of newspaper syndication that will constitute a basic work for subsequent scholarship on the American literary marketplace; that book should be of interest to anyone who studies the relationship of literature to periodical publication." Jeffrey D. Groves, Victorian Periodicals Review

"Charles Johanningsmeier's book sheds light on an obscure area of late-nineteenth-century textual distribution, that of newspaper syndicates." Ronald J. Zboray, American Historical Review

"Johanningsmeier has recovered a segment of the literary marketplace long misunderstood, denigrated, or simply ignored. This fine study demonstrates how slid business history illuminates American literary history." Scott E. Casper, The Journal of American History

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0521497108
• ISBN 13: 9780521497107
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 298