Literary Patronage in England, 1650–1800 - Softcover

Griffin, Dustin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521024463 ISBN 13: 9780521024464

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Before the development of a full-blown literary "market" in which an author might hope to make an independent living, books were brought to readers with considerable assistance from patronage. Dustin Griffin offers the first comprehensive study of the system of literary patronage in early modern England. Combining the perspectives of literary, social, and political history, he lays out the workings of the system and shows how authors wrote within it, manipulating it to their advantage or resisting the claims of patrons by advancing counterclaims of their own.

About this title

Review

"Explores boldly and intelligently the complex relationships among various forms of monetary reward and symbolic capital....Rigorously argued and well-researched, this study offers a compelling rereading of the culture of late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century patronage." Studies in English Literature

"Dustin Griffin's admirable and exemplary study conveys good news to the scholarly community....it opens a discussion of the real influences on the patronage system on eighteenth-century letters and invites further analysis. Such an analysis of how the system affected the myriad minor and women authors remains to be considered, but Griffin has provided the necessary framework and set an exemplary critical standard." Betty Rizzo, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

"...clearly written, substantive, and well-argued...." "...Griffin's important book...will inevitably testify to the considerable strength of the case it makes." Robert C. Evans, Albion

"Dutin Griffin's Literary Patronage in England thoroughly examines patronage practices throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and concludes with a chapter tracing the continuance of patronage into the careers of Crabbe and Burns." John Kandl, The Wordsworth Circle

"Dustin Griffin's necessary and welcome book on literary patronage in England's aggrandized eighteenth century is now the most thoughtful and important account of its subject." Robert Folkenflik, Bibliographical Society of America

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0521024463
• ISBN 13: 9780521024464
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328