The Profession of Authorship in America

by William Charvat, Matthew J. Bruccoli

This study focuses on the complex relations between author, publisher and contemporary reading public in 19th-century America; in particular, the emergence of Irving and Cooper as America's first successful literary entrepreneurs, how Poe's and Melville's successes and failures affected their writing, the popularization of poetry in the 1830s and 1840s, the role of the literary magazine in the 1840s and 1850s, and the beginnings of book promotion. It pays particular attention to the way social and economic forces helped to shape literary works.

327 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 1992

Reviews

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to say I read this, though I only read six or seven of the 15 essays. I doubt anybody read the thing through, and my interest in Longfellow and Melville doesn't run to five chapters. Charvat's focus on the practicalities of early American publishing is still essential. I mean--yes--let's discuss Hawthorne's use of metaphor, but there were practical reasons he wrote what he wrote, which I think doesn't get as much focus as maybe it should in American lit classes. Of interest to me is that Charvat points out why Hartford, Connecticut, became a book center. (Why, yes, I did read this for my bio of SGG.) And he discusses the complete obsession 19th-century Americans had with some of the godawfullest poetry you can imagine. (Sorry, Lydia Sigourney.)

Charvat's writing style isn't the pretentious bibblebabble I've seen too often in other works about American literature. His sentences are clear, and his arguments are easy to follow. I could have used more endnotes, but then I always want to know where every little bit of information came from.

All-in-all, a useful and thoughtful collection of essays. And maybe I'll eventually get around to reading the ones I skipped.