Capital letters : authorship in the antebellum literary market / by David Dowling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dowling, David.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Authorship--Economic aspects--United States--History--19th century.

Authorship.

Authorship--Social aspects--United States--History--19th century.

Authors, American--19th century--Economic conditions.

Authors, American.

Authors and publishers--United States--History--19th century.

Authors and publishers.

Literature and society--United States--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (231 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the 1840's and 1850's, as the market revolution swept the United States, the world of literature confronted for the first time the gaudy glare of commercial culture. Amid growing technological sophistication and growing artistic rejection of the soullessness of materialism, authorship passed from an era of patronage and entered the clamoring free market. In this setting, romantic notions of what it meant to be an author came under attack, and authors became professionals.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Literature Now Makes Its Home with the Merchant: The Transformation of Literary Economics, 1820-61; Part 1: Crusading for Social Justice; 1. Other and More Terrible Evils: Anticapitalist Rhetoric in Harriet Wilson's Our Nig and Proslavery Propaganda; 2. Alert, Adventurous, and Unwearied: Market Values in Thoreau's Economies of Subsistence Living and Writing; Part 2: Transforming the Market; 3. Capital Sentiment: Fanny Fern's Transformation of the Gentleman Publisher's Code; 4. Transcending Capital: Whitman's Poet Figure and the Marketing of Leaves of Grass

Part 3: Worrying the Woman Question 5. Dollarish All Over: Rebecca Harding Davis's Market Success and the Economic Perils of Transcendentalism; 6. Satirizing the Spheres: Refiguring Gender and Authorship in Melville; Dreams Deferred: Ambition and the Mass Market in Melville and King; Notes; Works Cited; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-211) and index.

ISBN:

9781587298349

1587298341

OCLC:

692336754