This post outlines a
chapter from Jonathan Rose’s A Companion
to the History of the Book called “Modernity and Print I: Britain
1890-1970.” This selection is for my class with Elizabeth Miller called Victorian
Media and the Victorian Novel.
Structure of the argument:
Structure of the argument:
As the chapter title seems
to suggest, the structure of this chapter is loosely chronological. While it
certainly jumps between different times within 1890-1970 (to make a comparison,
for instance, or to think of the breadth of time within this period for a
certain phenomenon), it begins just prior to 1890 and ends pointing just beyond
1970. The chapter, as you’ll see in the paragraph analyses below, contains
sections of background information which are linked often by subject material. Common
threads throughout are the notions of accessibility, popularity, and regulation
of both fiction and nonfiction in this period. These threads of background
information are complicated throughout with counter examples. It’s important to
note here that while the chapter is in certain ways laid out chronologically,
there is not necessarily a notion of “progress.” Rather, when Rose points
beyond 1970, it is to bring up the oncoming censorship, which points back to
the censorship and suppression he had earlier described from the 1890s.
Function of each paragraph/section:
Opening: The first two paragraphs set up the historical moment of 1890 for the rights of authors by going back about 4-5 years to the significant New Book Agreement. Rather than start with 1890, this paragraph gives a short lead-in by describing the importance of the new international copyright law and its influence on trans-Atlantic book sales.
Directly after this section, the third paragraph takes on a change of perspective, which serves to complicate the opening of this chapter. It briefly portrays the American views of the international copyright law. While the law helped Great Britain in terms of sales, Americans were accustomed to getting their British works for cheap, and were thus annoyed by the international law until their own authors were selling well in Great Britain (for example, with Mark Twain).
Function of each paragraph/section:
Opening: The first two paragraphs set up the historical moment of 1890 for the rights of authors by going back about 4-5 years to the significant New Book Agreement. Rather than start with 1890, this paragraph gives a short lead-in by describing the importance of the new international copyright law and its influence on trans-Atlantic book sales.
Directly after this section, the third paragraph takes on a change of perspective, which serves to complicate the opening of this chapter. It briefly portrays the American views of the international copyright law. While the law helped Great Britain in terms of sales, Americans were accustomed to getting their British works for cheap, and were thus annoyed by the international law until their own authors were selling well in Great Britain (for example, with Mark Twain).
The next paragraph serves
to define and give background information about publishing firms around 1890 in
Britain and the main firm that started producing international bestsellers.
Similarly, the paragraph following is informational: It helps define the status
of a literary agent around 1890 (a somewhat distrusted figure, but someone who
was nonetheless necessary in such a complicated system). Next, there’s a
paragraph describing the changing readership scene in England right before
1890: there are a variety of reading publics and different marketing attempts.
There’s a shift in the next paragraph to the innovations starting in the 1890s: the move from the three-decker to the less expensive single work. New publishers are here connected to the success of authors such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf. This helps set up the next paragraph describing the growing market for modernist works. This section also shows that publishing companies became themselves something to market: by buying a book from a specific publisher of modernist works, the buyers could show their “taste.”
The next section complicates this image of a booming market for modernist fiction. It does this by bringing up “highbrow critics” who were resistant to the mass production of these works, and also the increased material costs after World War II. These complications lead to the next section: The Obscene Publications Act and the ways in which suppressed material made the work all that more profitable. Overall, the next section seems to argue that factors (such as the Victorian notion of self-improvement) led to less expensive re-prints and more overall profit for publishers.
There’s a shift in the next paragraph to the innovations starting in the 1890s: the move from the three-decker to the less expensive single work. New publishers are here connected to the success of authors such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf. This helps set up the next paragraph describing the growing market for modernist works. This section also shows that publishing companies became themselves something to market: by buying a book from a specific publisher of modernist works, the buyers could show their “taste.”
The next section complicates this image of a booming market for modernist fiction. It does this by bringing up “highbrow critics” who were resistant to the mass production of these works, and also the increased material costs after World War II. These complications lead to the next section: The Obscene Publications Act and the ways in which suppressed material made the work all that more profitable. Overall, the next section seems to argue that factors (such as the Victorian notion of self-improvement) led to less expensive re-prints and more overall profit for publishers.
So as to not generalize,
the following paragraph describes one of the major exceptions to these mass
produced, cheaper works: William Morris’s hand-crafted, expensive, and nostalgic
prints. This exception, moreover, is complicated in the next paragraph by
examining the ways in which Morris’s hand-crafted style was picked up by mass producers.
For the next four-five paragraphs, a further complication emerges: the concept of book borrowing occurring in book clubs and, of course, circulating libraries. These paragraphs help connect, I believe, the earlier information about book buying to the chapter’s discussion of popularity, as both book buying and borrowing must be taken into account. This leads to a look at popularity and content, especially arguments (made at the time) that the popular was “middlebrow.” The period’s criticism ties in directly here in the following paragraph.
There’s then a surprising turn, I think, to the effects of World War II on book production. The chapter had briefly discussed its impact before, but now the focus is on the actual damage to books, libraries, and places of publication, as well. I wonder if, at this point in the chapter, there is more of a chronological structure guiding the writing. The chapter ends with the rebuilding of these book sources and the success of British literary exports by 1970.
After finishing this chapter, I am wondering about the more overall argument of the larger work in which this chapter appears. (I'm wondering how this chapter itself might function at Hayot's levels 1 and 2 within the larger work). Although there were complications throughout the chapter, the information was given as though it was objective material.
For the next four-five paragraphs, a further complication emerges: the concept of book borrowing occurring in book clubs and, of course, circulating libraries. These paragraphs help connect, I believe, the earlier information about book buying to the chapter’s discussion of popularity, as both book buying and borrowing must be taken into account. This leads to a look at popularity and content, especially arguments (made at the time) that the popular was “middlebrow.” The period’s criticism ties in directly here in the following paragraph.
There’s then a surprising turn, I think, to the effects of World War II on book production. The chapter had briefly discussed its impact before, but now the focus is on the actual damage to books, libraries, and places of publication, as well. I wonder if, at this point in the chapter, there is more of a chronological structure guiding the writing. The chapter ends with the rebuilding of these book sources and the success of British literary exports by 1970.
After finishing this chapter, I am wondering about the more overall argument of the larger work in which this chapter appears. (I'm wondering how this chapter itself might function at Hayot's levels 1 and 2 within the larger work). Although there were complications throughout the chapter, the information was given as though it was objective material.
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