Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Formation of the Victorian Literary Profession
  • Cited by 40
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
August 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781139600538
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139600538
Subjects:
Literature, Printing and Publishing History, English Literature 1830-1900
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (87)
Information

Book description

Richard Salmon provides an original account of the formation of the literary profession during the late Romantic and early Victorian periods. Focusing on the representation of authors in narrative and iconographic texts, including novels, biographies, sketches and portrait galleries, Salmon traces the emergence of authorship as a new form of professional identity from the 1820s to the 1850s. Many first-generation Victorian writers, including Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Martineau and Barrett-Browning, contributed to contemporary debates on the 'Dignity of Literature', professional heroism, and the cultural visibility of the 'man of letters'. This study combines a broad mapping of the early Victorian literary field with detailed readings of major texts. The book argues that the key model of professional development within this period is embodied in the narrative form of literary apprenticeship, which inspired such celebrated works as David Copperfield and Aurora Leigh, and that its formative process is the 'disenchantment of the author'.

Reviews

'A thorough and thought-provoking analysis.'

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

'Salmon’s scholarship and theoretical applications are extensive and thoughtfully arrayed. His close intertextual reading of key documents is exemplary and illuminating. The book provides a template for courses on literary periodization and the complicated, vexed, developing construction of a significant profession of mid-Victorian letters.'

Robert L. Patten Source: SHARP News

'Salmon is good on nuance and at his best when teasing out the mixed messages and anxieties expressed by Victorians about authorship.'

Source: Standpoint

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.