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Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers: From Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code / Edition 1

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ISBN-10:: 144116216X
ISBN-13:: 9781441162168
Pub. Date:: 08/02/2012
Publisher:: Bloomsbury Academic

ISBN-10:: 144116216X
ISBN-13:: 9781441162168
Pub. Date:: 08/02/2012
Publisher:: Bloomsbury Academic

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers: From Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code / Edition 1

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Overview

What is it about certain books that makes them bestsellers? Why do some of these books remain popular for centuries, and others fade gently into obscurity? And why is it that when scholars do turn their attention to bestsellers, they seem only to be interested in the same handful of blockbusters, when so many books that were once immensely popular remain under-examined?

Addressing those and other equally pressing questions about popular literature, Must Read is the first scholarly collection to offer both a survey of the evolution of American bestsellers as well as critical readings of some of the key texts that have shaped the American imagination since the nation's founding.

Focusing on a mix of enduring and forgotten bestsellers, the essays in this collection consider 18th and 19th century works, like Charlotte Temple or Ben-Hur, that were once considered epochal but are now virtually ignored; 20th century favorites such as The Sheik and Peyton Place; and 21st century blockbusters including the novels of Nicholas Sparks, The Kite Runner, and The Da Vinci Code.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441162168
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/02/2012
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia, UK. She is the author of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (Granta 2004), and has published numerous scholarly articles and introductions. Her new book, Careless People, about F Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby will be published by Virago (UK) and Penguin (US) in early 2013. She has a monthly column on cultural criticism for the New Statesman, and writes regularly for newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer, the TLS, the New York Times Book Review, the Times, and the Telegraph. She frequently appears on television and radio, including as a regular panelist on The Review Show (BBC2).

Thomas Ruys Smith is a Lecturer in American Literature and Culture in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. He is the author of Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century (Continuum, 2011), River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain (Louisiana State University Press, 2007) and the editor of Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men: Nineteenth-Century Mississippi River Gambling Stories (Louisiana State University Press, 2010). He is currently at work on an exploration of Mark Twain's relationship with the Mississippi River.

1. Must Read: Rediscovering American BestsellersSarah Churchwell and Thomas Ruys Smith2. Missing Numbers: The Partial History of the BestsellerSarah Garland3. The History of Charlotte Temple (1791) as an American BestsellerGideon Mailer4. 'Like Beads Strung Together': E.D.E.N. Southworth and the Aesthetics of Popular Serial FictionRachel Ihara5. Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1854) and the Visual Culture of TemperanceWilliam Gleason6. 'The Man Without a Country' (1863): Treason, Expansionism, and the History of a 'Bestselling' Short StoryHsuan Hsu7. Exhilaration and Enlightenment in the Biblical Bestseller: Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ (1880)James Russell 8. ‘Absolutely Punk': Queer Economies of Desire in Tarzan of the Apes (1912)J. Michelle Coghlan9. Ornamentalism: Desire, Disavowal and Displacement in E.M. Hull's The Sheik (1919)Sarah Garland10. Small Change? Emily Post's Etiquette (1922-2011)Grace Lees-Maffei11. Blockbuster Feminism: Peyton Place (1956) and the Uses of ScandalArdis Cameron12. Crimes and Bestsellers: Mario Puzo Path to The Godfather (1969)Evan Brier12. Master of Sentiment: The Romances of Nicholas SparksSarah Churchwell13.The Kite Runner Transnational Allegory: Anatomy of an Afghan-American BestsellerGeorgiana Banita14. The Fiction of History: The Da Vinci Code (2003) and the Virtual Public SphereStephen Mexal Contributor BiographiesIndex

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Editorial Reviews

"The volume is particularly strong in its trans-Atlantic, global focus for all historical periods it covers. It is uniformly sophisticated in its attention to gender and sexuality, race, religion, and national identity, but also written in terms easily accessible to undergraduates...Must Read succeeds both in its parts and as a whole. The essays are generally of high quality, but Churchwell and Smith have also created an unusual degree of unity and coherence among the essays. Must Read's thorough, clear introduction and careful selection and framing make it feel more like a monograph. Together, these essays make a coherent argument about popular literature as a site of struggle over meaning across history, a space where controversies over religion, race, nation, gender/sexuality, social and cultural value are negotiated." --Erin A. Smith, American Book Review

From the Publisher

Relentlessly suspicious of popular literature, particularly the best seller, literary scholars and cultural critics continue to grapple with understanding the allure of the "must read," its historical impact, and its enduring mass appeal. In this new collection of essays, Churchwell (American literature, Univ. of East Anglia, U.K.; The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe) and Smith (River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain; Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century) focus on the "critically neglected but historically popular texts" spanning Colonial America (Charlotte Temple) to the 21st century (The Da Vinci Code). Uniformly dense chapters written by literary academics offer meticulous profiles of selected bestsellers that detail the book's production, distribution, and marketing influences, in addition to an analysis of its cultural impact and literary legacy. Notable chapters include, "Crimes and bestsellers: Mario Puzo's path to The Godfather"—a look into the novel's success when the publishing industry was on the edge of crucial change during the years following World War II; and "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and the Visual Culture of Temperance"—an insightful essay on America's 1854 best-selling graphic novel that illustrates the country's "dark years." VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in publishing trends and the rise and fall of popular American literature, and for the literary extremist.—Annalisa Pesek, Library Journal

Library Journal

The volume is particularly strong in its trans-Atlantic, global focus for all historical periods it covers. It is uniformly sophisticated in its attention to gender and sexuality, race, religion, and national identity, but also written in terms easily accessible to undergraduates...Must Read succeeds both in its parts and as a whole. The essays are generally of high quality, but Churchwell and Smith have also created an unusual degree of unity and coherence among the essays. Must Read's thorough, clear introduction and careful selection and framing make it feel more like a monograph. Together, these essays make a coherent argument about popular literature as a site of struggle over meaning across history, a space where controversies over religion, race, nation, gender/sexuality, social and cultural value are negotiated.

American Book Review Erin A. Smith

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers: From Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code / Edition 1

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers: From Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code / Edition 1

Paperback

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

Customer Reviews