Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace

Download or read book Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace written by Charles Johanningsmeier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional 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.