Amazon.com: American Authors and the Literary Marketplace since 1900 (9780812213300): James L. W. West III: Books

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812213300 | ISBN-13: 978-0812213300 | Publication Date: August 1, 1990

This book examines literary authorship in the twentieth century and covers such topics as publishing, book distribution, the trade editor, the literary agent, the magazine market, subsidiary rights, and the blockbuster mentality.

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This book examines literary authorship in the twentieth century and covers such topics as publishing, book distribution, the trade editor, the literary agent, the magazine market, subsidiary rights, and the blockbuster mentality.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To understand literature qua "literature" we must be knowledgeable about the commercialism that directs publishing, lectures the author, who teaches at Pennsylvania State University, and in this overview, which proves to be insufficiently specific for students and too academic for general readers, he attempts to address and ultimately fails both audiences. West views authorship as a cottage industry that produces literary piecework for publishers to turn into saleable goods and writers themselves as economically classless and thus unprotected by professionalization or unionization in the free-enterprise economy. Noting a paucity of post-1950 archival materialthe information covering our own day, however, proves to be the most interesting in the studyhe concentrates on late 19th and early 20th century authors and publishers, tracking the evolving book industry as transportation systems and book clubs expanded distribution, bookstore chains made their impact, literary agents emerged as a force. West is savvy about ancillary rightstranslation, reprints, etc. "recycling" that reaps continuing income from even less-than-blockbuster books.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"West admirably and lucidly stalks an important theoretical point—the relationship between aesthetic and commercial factors in the production of serious American literature."—American Literature

"The first systematic, scholarly examination of authorship in our own time. . . . A valuable and stimulating book."—Library Quarterly

"An absorbing account of the mechanics and economics of American writing."—Encounter

"[West] bulids a convincing case for the way market forces shape a writer's career, subject matter, and narrative form."—Review in American Studies

See all Editorial Reviews

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's James L. W. West Page

James L. W. West III, a native of Virginia, is Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. West is a book historian, scholarly editor, and biographer. He has written books on F. Scott Fitzgerald and on the history of professional authorship in America and has held fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. West has had Fulbright appointments in England (at Cambridge University) and in Belgium (at the Université de Liège). He is the general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and is at work on a volume of essays.