| American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834-1853 Subjects: Hawthorne Nathaniel 1804–1864 -- Relations with publishers; Poe Edgar Allan 1809–1849 -- Relations with publishers; Dickens Charles 1812–1870 -- Relations with publishers; American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Literature publ; The antebellum period has long been identified with the belated emergence of a truly national literature. And yet, as Meredith L. McGill argues, a mass market for books in this period was built and sustained through what we would call rampant literary piracy: a national literature developed not despite but because of the systematic copying of foreign works. Restoring a political dimension to accounts of the economic grounds of antebellum literature, McGill unfolds the legal arguments and political struggles that produced an American "culture of reprinting" and held it in place for two crucial decades. Meredith L. McGill is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University. |