Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace
Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace
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USDConventional literary history has virtually ignored the role of newspaper syndicates in publishing some of the most famous nineteenth-century writers. Stephen Crane, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain were among those who offered their early fiction to 'Syndicates', firms which subsequently sold the work to newspapers across America for simultaneous, first-time publication. This newly decentralised process profoundly affected not only the economics of publishing, but also the relationship between authors, texts and readers. In the first full-length study of this publishing phenomenon, Charles Johanningsmeier evaluates the unique site of interaction syndicates held between readers and texts.
- First book on the subject
- Revises the traditional notion of literary history
Reviews & endorsements
"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
Product details
July 2002Paperback
9780521520188
300 pages
229 × 152 × 17 mm
0.44kg
8 b/w illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Newspaper syndicates of the late nineteenth century: overlooked forces in the American literary marketplace
- 1. Preparing the way for the syndicates: a revolution in American fiction production, distribution, and readership, 1860–1900
- 2. The pioneers: readyprint, plate service, and early galley-proof syndicates
- 3. The heyday of American fiction syndication: Irvin Bacheller, S. S. McClure and other independent syndicators
- 4. What literary syndicates represented to authors: saviours, doctors, or something in between?
- 5. What price must authors pay? The negotiations between galley-proof syndicates and authors
- 6. Pleasing the customers: the balance of power between syndicates and newspaper editors
- 7. Readers' experiences with syndicated fiction
- 8. The decline of the literary syndicates
- Notes
- Bibliography.
