The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880-1920

The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880-1920 PDF Author: Mary Ann Gillies
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802091474
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Breaking new ground in the study of British literary culture during an important, transitional period, this new work by Mary Ann Gillies focuses on the professional literary agent whose emergence in Britain around 1880 coincided with, and accelerated, the transformation of both publishing and authorship. Like other recent studies in book and print culture, The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880-1920 starts from the central premise that the business of authorship is inextricably linked with the aesthetics of literary praxis. Rather than provide a broad overview of the period, however, Gillies focuses on a specific figure, the professional literary agent. She then traces the influence of two prominent agents - A. P. Watt (generally acknowledged as the first professional literary agent) and J. B. Pinker (the leading figure in the second wave of agents) - focusing on their respective relationships with two key clients. The case studies not only provide insight into the business dynamics of the literary world at this time, but also illustrate the shifting definition of literature itself during the period.

Elizabethan Publishing and the Makings of Literary Culture

Elizabethan Publishing and the Makings of Literary Culture PDF Author: Kirk Melnikoff
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487514948
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Elizabethan Publishing and the Makings of Literary Culture explores the influence of the book trade over English literary culture in the decades following incorporation of the Stationers’ Company in 1557. Through an analysis of the often overlooked contributions of bookmen like Thomas Hacket, Richard Smith, and Paul Linley, Kirk Melnikoff tracks the crucial role that bookselling publishers played in transmitting literary texts into print as well as energizing and shaping a new sphere of vernacular literary activity. The volume provides an overview of the full range of practises that publishers performed, including the acquisition of copy and titles, compiling, alteration to texts, reissuing, and specialization. Four case studies together consider links between translation and the travel narrative; bookselling and authorship; re-issuing and the Ovidian narrative poem; and specialization and professional drama. Works considered include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Thévet’s The New Found World, Constable’s Diana, and Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage. This exciting new book provides both a complement and a counter to recent studies that have turned back to authors and out to buyers and printing houses as makers of vernacular literary culture in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Literary Agents in the Transatlantic Book Trade

Literary Agents in the Transatlantic Book Trade PDF Author: Cécile Cottenet
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317192885
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
By way of a case study of one of the oldest French book agencies, Agence Hoffman, this book analyzes the role played by French literary agents in the importation of US fiction and literature into France in the years following World War II. It sheds light on the material conditions of the circulation of texts across the Atlantic between 1944 and 1955, exploring the fine mechanisms of agents’ negotiations which allowed texts, and ideas, to cross borders. While providing comparative insights into the history of publishing in France and in the United States in the immediate aftermath of the war, this book aims at foregrounding the role of the book agent, an all-too often neglected intermediary in the field of book history. Grounded in archival work conducted both in France and the United States, this study is based on previously unexamined correspondence. Considering the concept of mediation as central in the field of print culture, this book addresses the dearth of scholarship on literary agents on both sides of the Atlantic, and intersects with the current scholarship on transatlantic, internationalm and transnational cultural and trade networks, as evidenced by the recently emerged field of sociology of translation in Europe.

The Book in Britain

The Book in Britain PDF Author: Daniel Allington
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119115167
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
Introduces readers to the history of books in Britain—their significance, influence, and current and future status Presented as a comprehensive, up-to-date narrative, The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction explores the impact of books, manuscripts, and other kinds of material texts on the cultures and societies of the British Isles. The text clearly explains the technicalities of printing and publishing and discusses the formal elements of books and manuscripts, which are necessary to facilitate an understanding of that impact. This collaboratively authored narrative history combines the knowledge and expertise of five scholars who seek to answer questions such as: How does the material form of a text affect its meaning? How do books shape political and religious movements? How have the economics of the book trade and copyright shaped the literary canon? Who has been included in and excluded from the world of books, and why? The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction will appeal to all scholars, students, and historians interested in the written word and its continued production and presentation.

Literature, Print Culture, and Media Technologies, 1880–1900

Literature, Print Culture, and Media Technologies, 1880–1900 PDF Author: Richard Menke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108492940
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Connects British and American literature to a changing media landscape in an era of innovation.

Professional Translators in Nineteenth-Century France

Professional Translators in Nineteenth-Century France PDF Author: Susan Pickford
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040253180
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
This book shines a light on the practices and professional identities of translators in nineteenth-century France, speaking to the translatorial turn in translation studies which spotlights translators as active agents in the international circulation of texts. The volume charts the sociocultural, legal, and economic developments which paved the way for the development of the professional translation industry in France in the period following the French Revolution through to the First World War. Drawing on archival material from French publishers, institutional archives, and translators’ own discourses, and applying historiographical methodologies, Pickford explores the working conditions of professional translators during this time and the subsequent professional identities which emerged from the collective practice of translation across publishing, business, and government. In its diachronic approach to translators’ practices and identities, the book aims to recover the collective contributions of these translators and, in turn, paves the way for a new approach to “translator history from below”. The volume will appeal to students and scholars in translation studies, particularly those with an interest in literary translation, translation history, and translator practices.

An Eye for Genius

An Eye for Genius PDF Author: Kerry Sutherland
Publisher: Kerry Sutherland
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
A middle aged author declining in popularity. An up and coming literary agent with an eye for genius. A partnership that would forge a prodigious legacy in American literature. Henry James was a middle-aged author who had established himself on a transatlantic scale when he employed James Brand Pinker as his literary agent in 1898. The changing preferences of a growing audience of readers along with James’s self-defeating practice of shifting from publisher to publisher, rather than adhering to the trade courtesy of remaining loyal to one house, were making the author’s efforts to keep his work in print increasingly difficult; bringing Pinker, who managed the literary business of over 100 authors including Stephen Crane, H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, and Jack London, into the picture made it possible for James to maintain a presence before the reading public to an extent that would have been impossible without the agent’s assistance. Pinker’s involvement was vital to the continuance of James’s career, as his later works and the New York Edition proved difficult material to place. The agent’s role as the mediator of conflict between the commercial writer and literary artist, positions that James had difficulty reconciling, had considerable influence on the shape of James’s later career and thus the way in which the author is remembered; James’s legacy is therefore clearly tied to Pinker’s efforts. Using correspondence between Pinker, James, and the primary publishers of James’s material from 1898 until Pinker’s death in 1922, along with secondary works addressing the agent’s endeavors during this period, this volume demonstrates the link between Pinker’s work and James’s continued presence in print, both during the author’s lifetime and after his death.

The Routledge Concise History of Nineteenth-Century Literature

The Routledge Concise History of Nineteenth-Century Literature PDF Author: Josephine Guy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136884467
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Nineteenth-century Britain saw the rise of secularism, the development of a modern capitalist economy, multi-party democracy, and an explosive growth in technological, scientific and medical knowledge. It also witnessed the emergence of a mass literary culture which changed permanently the relationships between writers, readers and publishers. Focusing on the work of British and Irish authors, The Routledge Concise History of Nineteenth-Century Literature: considers changes in literary forms, styles and genres, as well as in critical discourses examines literary movements such as Romanticism, Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism and Decadence considers the work of a wide range of canonical and non-canonical writers discusses the impact of gender studies, queer theory, postcolonialism and book history contains useful, student-friendly features such as explanatory text boxes, chapter summaries, a detailed glossary and suggestions for further reading. In their lucid and accessible manner, Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small provide readers with an understanding of the complexity and variety of nineteenth-century literary culture, as well as the historical conditions which produced it.

Victorian Jesus

Victorian Jesus PDF Author: Ian Hesketh
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442663596
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously in 1865, alarmed some readers and delighted others by its presentation of a humanitarian view of Christ and early Christian history. Victorian Jesus explores the relationship between historian J. R. Seeley and his publisher Alexander Macmillan as they sought to keep Seeley’s authorship a secret while also trying to exploit the public interest. Ian Hesketh highlights how Ecce Homo's reception encapsulates how Victorians came to terms with rapidly changing religious views in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hesketh critically examines Seeley’s career and public image, and the publication and reception of his controversial work. Readers and commentators sought to discover the author’s identity in order to uncover the hidden meaning of the book, and this engendered a lively debate about the ethics of anonymous publishing. In Victorian Jesus, Ian Hesketh argues for the centrality of this moment in the history of anonymity in book and periodical publishing throughout the century.

The Prison of Love

The Prison of Love PDF Author: Emily C. Francomano
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442630531
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
The Spanish romance Cárcel de amor blossomed into a transnational and multilingual phenomenon that captivated audiences throughout Europe at a time when literacy was expanding and print production was changing the nature of reading, writing, and of literature itself. In The Prison of Love, Emily Francomano offers the first comparative study of this sixteenth-century work as a transcultural, humanist fiction. Blending literary analysis and book history, Francomano provides us with the richly textured history of the translations, material books, and artefacts that make this tale of love, letters, and courtly intrigue an invaluable prism through which the multifaceted world of sixteenth-century literary and book cultures are refracted.