The Transatlantic Materials of American Literature
The Transatlantic Materials of American Literature
Publishing US Writing in Britain, 1830–1860
During the antebellum period, British publishers increasingly brought out their own authorized and unauthorized editions of American literary works as the popularity of print exploded and literacy rates grew. Playing a formative role in the shaping of American literature, the industry championed the work of US-based writers, highlighted the cultural value of American literary works, and intervened in debates about the future of American literature, authorship, and print culture.
The Transatlantic Materials of American Literature examines the British editions of American fiction, poetry, essays, and autobiographies from writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Hannah Flagg Gould. Putting these publications into historical context, Katie McGettigan considers key issues of the day, including developments in copyright law, changing print technologies, and the financial considerations at play for authors and publishers. This innovative study also uncovers how the transatlantic circulation of these works exposed the racial violence and cultural nationalism at the heart of the American experiment, producing overlapping and competing visions of American nationhood in the process.
‘McGettigan convincingly argues that the transatlantic book trade, particularly British publishers, had a large role to play in the reception, preservation, and evaluation of texts from American authors, or authors who saw themselves as transatlantic.’—Justin T. Brown-Ramsey, Textual Cultures
‘This book is a marvel of persistent research and the creative use of sources. McGettigan deftly and persuasively shows how the British publishing trades were intimately bound up with the American book market, shaping American authors’ understanding of their careers at every turn. The Transatlantic Materials of American Literature stands to become the authoritative account of the range of complex dealings between American authors and British publishers.’—Meredith McGill, author of American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834–1853‘This is a truly groundbreaking project, which has the potential to revolutionize the way Americanists understand the importance of transatlantic publishing to US writers of the antebellum period.’—Joseph Rezek, author of London and the Making of Provincial Literature: Aesthetics and the Transatlantic Book Trade, 1800–1850
KATIE MCGETTIGAN is senior lecturer of American literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Herman Melville: Modernity and the Material Text.
