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Zusatztext Wit and a sharp eye for such anecdotes, as well as serious and wide-ranging scholarship, characterises Waller's book. Klappentext Writers! Readers! and Reputations explores the literary world in which the modern best-seller first emerged. Writers were promoted as celebrities! advertising both products and themselves. Philip Waller's detailed and entertaining study is a collective biography of literary figures! some forgotten! some enduring! over half a century. Selected by Philip Pullman as a 'Book of the Year' for 2008 Zusammenfassung Charles Dickens died in 1870, the same year in which universal elementary education was introduced. During the following generation a mass reading public emerged, and the term 'best-seller' was coined. In new and cheap editions Dickens's stories sold hugely, but these were progressively outstripped in quantity by the likes of Hall Caine and Marie Corelli, Charles Garvice and Nat Gould. Who has now heard of these writers? Yet Hall Caine, for one, boasted of having made more money from his pen than any previous author. This book presents a panoramic view of literary life in Britain over half a century from 1870 to 1918, teasing out authors' relations with the reading public and tracing how reputations were made and unmade. It surveys readers' habits, the book trade, popular literary magazines and the role of reviewers, and examines the construction of a classical canon by critics concerned about the supposed corruption of popular taste. Certain writers were elevated as national heroes, yet Britain drew its writers from abroad as well as from home. Authors became stars and celebrities, and a literary tourism grew around their haunts. They advertised products from cigarettes to toothpaste; they were fashion-conscious and promoted themsevles via profiles, interviews, and carefully posed photographs; they went on lecture tours to America; and their names were pushed by a new professional breed: the literary agent. Some angled for knighthoods, even peerages, and cut a figure in high society and London clubland. They debated public issues of the day and campaigned on all manner of things from questions of faith and women's rights to censorship and conscription. During the Great War they penned propaganda. Meanwhile the cinema was developing to challenge the supremacy of the written word over the imagination. Authors took to that too, as an opportunity for new adventure. Writers, Readers, and Reputations is richly entertaining and informative, amounting to a collective biography of a generation of writers and their world. Inhaltsverzeichnis Part I: The Reading World 1: Back to the Future: Authors at the Movies 2: Consenting and Dissenting Bibliophiles in Public and Private 3: Literary Advice and Advisers 4: Reviews and Reviewers 5: The Great Tradition 6: The Commemmoration Movement 7: English Literature's Foreign Relations; or ''e dunno ou il est!' Part II: Writers and the Public: The Price of Fame 8: Having a Flutter: Product Advertising and Self-Advertising 9: The Star Turn 10: Playing the Press: Entry and Exposure 11: Securing the Future 12: Titles and Laurels 13: Social Prestige and Clubability 14: The Aristocratic Round and Salon Circle 15: Looking and Acting the Part 16: Lecture Tours 17: Literary Properties and Agencies Part III: Best-Sellers 18: Market Conditions 19: In Cupid's Chains: Charles Garvice 20: Hymns and Heroines: Florence Barclay 21: The Epic Ego: Hall Caine 22: The Demonic Dreamer: Marie Corelli 23: Authors at Play: Nat Gould Leads the Field Part IV: Writers and the Public: Penmen as Pundits 24: The Campaign Trail 25: Public Service and Party Politics 26: Pens at War 27: Pricking Censorship 28: Theology versus Sociology and Psychology Bibliography Index ...
