Capital Letters : Authorship in the Antebellum Literary Market

In the 1840s and 1850s, as the market revolution swept the United States, the world of literature confronted for the first time the gaudy glare of commercial culture. Amid growing technological sophistication and growing artistic rejection of the soullessness of materialism, authorship passed from an era of patronage and entered the clamoring free market. In this setting, romantic notions of what it meant to be an author came under attack, and authors became professionals. In lively and provocative writing, David Dowling moves beyond a study of the emotional toll that this crisis in self-definition had on writers to examine how three sets of authors—in pairings of men and women: Harriet Wilson and Henry David Thoreau, Fanny Fern and Walt Whitman, and Rebecca Harding Davis and Herman Melville—engaged with and transformed the book market. What were their critiques of the capitalism that was transforming the world around them? How did they respond to the changing marketplace that came to define their very success as authors? How was the role of women influenced by these conditions? Capital Letters concludes with a fascinating and daring transhistorical comparison of how two superstar authors—Herman Melville in the nineteenth century and Stephen King today—have negotiated the shifting terrain of the literary marketplace. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of print culture and literary work. In the 1840s and 1850s, as the market revolution swept the United States, the world of literature confronted for the first time the gaudy glare of commercial culture. Amid growing technological sophistication and mounting artistic rejection of the soullessness of materialism, authorship passed from an era of patronage and entered the clamoring free market. In this setting, romantic notions of what it meant to be an author came under attack, and authors became professionals. In lively and provocative writing, David Dowling moves beyond a study of the emotional toll that this crisis in self-definition had on writers to examine how three sets of authors—in pairings of men and women: Harriet Wilson and Henry David Thoreau, Fanny Fern and Walt Whitman, and Rebecca Harding Davis and Herman Melville—engaged with and transformed the book market. What were their critiques of the capitalism that was transforming the world around them? How did they respond to the changing marketplace that came to define their very success as authors? How was the role of women influenced by these conditions? Capital Letters concludes with a fascinating and daring transhistorical comparison of how two superstar authors—Herman Melville in the nineteenth century and Stephen King today—have negotiated the shifty terrain of the literary marketplace. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of print culture and literary work. Literature now makes its home with the merchant: the transformation of literary economics, 1820-1861 Crusading for social justice. Other and more terrible evils: anticapitalist rhetoric in Harriet Wilson's Our nig and proslavery propaganda Alert, adventurous, and unwearied: market values in Thoreau's economies of subsistence living and writing Transforming the market. Capital sentiment: Fanny Fern's transformation of the gentleman publisher's code Transcending capital: Whitman's poet figure and the marketing of Leaves of grass Worrying the woman question. Dollarish all over: Rebecca Harding Davis's market success and the economic perils of transcendentalism Parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics: refiguring gender, domesticity, and authorship in Melville Dreams deferred: ambition and the mass market in Melville and King. In the 1840s and 1850s, as the market revolution swept the United States, the world of literature confronted for the first time the gaudy glare of commercial culture. This title presents a comparison of how two superstar authors - Herman Melville in the 19th century and Stephen King - have negotiated the shifty terrain of the literary marketplace.