Fiction and the American Literary Marketplace: The Role of Newspaper Syndicates in America, 1860–1900

by Charles Johanningsmeier

• ISBN13: 9780521520188
• ISBN10: 0521520185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Acknowledgements	ix
List of abbreviations	xii
Introduction. Newspaper syndicates of the late nineteenth century: overlooked forces in the American literary marketplace	1	(10)
Preparing the way for the syndicates: a revolution in American fiction production, distribution, and readership, 1860--1900	11	(23)
The pioneers: readyprint, plate service, and early galley-proof syndicates	34	(30)
The heyday of American fiction syndication: Irving Bacheller, S. S. McClure, and other independent syndicators	64	(35)
What literary syndicates represented to authors:saviours, dictators, or something in-between?	99	(27)
What price must authors pay? The negotiations between gallery-proof syndicates and authors	126	(25)
Pleasing the customers: the balance of power between syndicates and newspaper editors	151	(32)
Readers' experiences with syndicated fiction	183	(23)
The decline of the literary syndicates	206	(22)
Notes	228	(38)
Bibliography	266	(15)
Index	281