The Culture of the Publisher's Series, Volume 1 Authors, Publishers and the Shaping of Taste

by Spiers, John

• ISBN13: 9780230284029
• ISBN10: 0230284027
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This volume focuses on the publisher's series as a cultural formation -- a material artefact and component of cultural hierarchies. Contributors engage with archival research, cultural theory, literary and bibliometric analysis (among a range of other approaches) to contextualize the publisher's series in terms of its cultural and economic work.

Author Biography

John Spiers is Senior. Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, UK, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Glamorgan, UK. He is also a distinguished publisher, founding the Harvester Press in 1969.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Wondering about 'the causes of causes'. The publisher's series, its cultural work and meanings.
Part I: The methodologies of series and the limits of knowledge; J.Spiers
Market Forces and Modernization in the French Book Trade in the Last Century of the 'Ancien Regime' and in the early 20th Century: Some reflections on the emergence of the publisher's series; W.Kirsop
The Invention of the Book Series in France, 1850-1950; I.Olivero
Canonicity, Reprint Publishing, and Copyright; G.B.Neavill
'To undertake such works as they find to be wanted': the early years of the Clarendon Press Series; S.Eliot
Personality, Appreciation and Literary Education: Harrap's 'Poetry and Life' Series, 1911-1930; P.Buckridge
Excavating original African-American 'pulp fiction': W. W. Norton's 'Old School Books' series; C.Cottenet
Thomas Nelson's and John Buchan: mutual marketing in the publisher's series; K.Macdonald
The Series as Commodity: Marketing T. Fisher Unwin's 'Pseudonym' and 'Autonym' Libraries; F.Nesta
Sifting out 'rubbish' in the literature of the 1920s: Chatto and Windus and the 'Phoenix Library'; A.Nash
A Modern Library for Modern Times. Behind the Scenes at the Albatross Press; M.K.Troy
Sound Information and Innocent Amusement: John Murray's Books on the Move; B.Schaff
Index