Synopses & Reviews
In
Publishing the Family June Howard turns a study of the collaborative novel
The Whole Family into a lens through which to examine American literature and culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. Striving to do equal justice to historical particulars and the broad horizons of social change, Howard reconsiders such categories of analysis as authorship, genre, and periodization. In the process, she offers a new method for cultural studies and American studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
and#9;Publishing the Family describes the sources and controversial outcome of a fascinating literary experiment. Howard embeds the story of The Whole Family in the story of Harper and Brothersandrsquo; powerful and pervasive presence in American cultural life, treating the publisher, in effect, as an author.
and#9;Each chapter of Publishing the Family casts light on some aspect of life in the United States at a moment that arguably marked the beginning of our own era. Howard revises common views of the turn-of-the-century literary marketplace and discusses the perceived crisis in the family as well as the popular and expert discourses that emerged to remedy it. She also demonstrates how creative women like Bazar editor Elizabeth Jordan blended their own ideas about the andldquo;New Womanandrdquo; with traditional values. Howard places these analyses in the framework of far-reaching historical changes, such as the transformation of the public meaning of emotion and andldquo;sentimentality.andrdquo; Taken together, the chapters in Publishing the Family show how profoundly the modern mapping of social life relies on boundaries between family and business, culture and commerce, which The Whole Family and Publishing the Family constantly unsettle.
and#9;Publishing the Family will interest students and scholars of American history, literature, and culture, as well as those studying gender, sexuality, and the family.
Review
andldquo;An engaging and ambitious work of great importance. Howardandrsquo;s discussion may radically reconfigure the terms of discussion for nineteenth-century conceptions of gender roles. Valuable not only for its impressive scholarship but also for its originality and insight, Publishing the Family is sure to occupy a prominent place in American literary and cultural studies.andrdquo;andmdash;Emory Elliott, author of Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age
Review
andldquo;Howard tells an original and carefully reasoned story about the nature of American literary sentimentalism and realism and connects both to changing expectations about gendered identity and experience. In the process, she uses the phenomenon of this collaboratively authored novel to subject our commonsense assumptions about literary creativity to searching scrutiny.andrdquo;andmdash;Janice Radway, author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire
Synopsis
Interweaves literary and publishing histories around the collaborative novel THE WHOLE FAMILY in order to explore categories of readers and writers in the U.S. during the first two decades of the twentieth-century.
About the Author
“An engaging and ambitious work of great importance. Howard’s discussion may radically reconfigure the terms of discussion for nineteenth-century conceptions of gender roles. Valuable not only for its impressive scholarship but also for its originality and insight, Publishing the Family is sure to occupy a prominent place in American literary and cultural studies.”—Emory Elliott, author of Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age“Howard tells an original and carefully reasoned story about the nature of American literary sentimentalism and realism and connects both to changing expectations about gendered identity and experience. In the process, she uses the phenomenon of this collaboratively authored novel to subject our commonsense assumptions about literary creativity to searching scrutiny.”—Janice Radway, author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire