Abstract
This essay analyzes the gradual commercialization of the book market in the antebellum period. It shows that the reality of book publishing in the 1830s and 1840s has little to do with traditional accounts of the antebellum period developed in the wake of or in opposition to F. O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. The essay focuses in particular on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ascent into the literary establishment of the 1840s—based mainly on the promotion of his Twice-Told Tales—and on the attempts to advertise Beecher-Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin across socially and politically diverse readerships in the South and the North.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Articles
- How to Read the Literary Market: An Introduction
- How to Read the ‘Literary’ in the Literary Market
- A Twice-Told Tale? Nathaniel Hawthorne, Genre, Sponsorship
- How Useful is Bourdieu’s Notion of Cultural Capital for Describing Literary Markets?
- From Product Placement to Boundary Work: Further Steps towards an Integrated Sociology of Literary Communication
- Greatness and the Convertibility of Literary Capital: W. D. Howells and Black Writers
- “No more little boxes” – Poetic Positionings in the Literary Field
- Books Received
- Books Received
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Articles
- How to Read the Literary Market: An Introduction
- How to Read the ‘Literary’ in the Literary Market
- A Twice-Told Tale? Nathaniel Hawthorne, Genre, Sponsorship
- How Useful is Bourdieu’s Notion of Cultural Capital for Describing Literary Markets?
- From Product Placement to Boundary Work: Further Steps towards an Integrated Sociology of Literary Communication
- Greatness and the Convertibility of Literary Capital: W. D. Howells and Black Writers
- “No more little boxes” – Poetic Positionings in the Literary Field
- Books Received
- Books Received