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The Impact of Distribution and Reading Patterns on the Novel in Britain, 1880-1940

1880-1940 年英国小说的发行和阅读模式的影响

基本信息

批准号：
AH/F009739/1
负责人：
John Parrinder
金额：
$ 24.07万
依托单位：
University of Reading
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2008
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2008 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF009739%2F1
关键词：
Impact Distribution Reading Patterns Novel

项目摘要

Huge changes took place in the production and distribution of fiction in Britain between 1880 and 1940. In 1880, most new novels were still published in three thick volumes which found their way to a limited upper- and middle-class reading public through such outlets as Mudie's Circulating Library. The more successful novels later appeared in one-volume reprint editions, but these were still beyond the means of the great majority of potential readers. Sixty years later, the average novel was very much shorter than the 'baggy monsters' of the Victorian period, and public libraries, cheap subscription libraries, book clubs, and the new mass-market paperbacks had brought novel-reading within the reach of almost everyone.In this project we are not concerned with the broad sociological effects of mass literacy, but rather with its specific impacts on the writing and reading of fiction. How did novelists and their publishers respond to changes in the marketing and readership of fiction? In particular, two kinds of effect will be investigated in detail. On the one hand, it has been alleged that the new market conditions resulted in new forms of censorship, while, on the other hand, novelists came to be seen (rightly or wrongly) as tailoring their work according to different perceived levels of culture and education among the reading public.After 1880, leading figures in each new generation of novelists set out to claim new freedoms for their art, beating back the boundaries of Victorian prudery and reticence and responding to a widespread desire for moral and sexual liberation. But libraries and other outlets were wary of offending public morality, and publishers depended upon them for sales; this led to the threat or actuality of censorship in some well-known cases, although its extent is unclear. A second strong influence on the writing of fiction was the prevailing conception of different classes of 'highbrow', 'middlebrow', and 'lowbrow' readers, each of whom required and demanded a different product. There is no doubt that some novelists and publishers felt under pressure to conform to these expectations, but how widespread was this? Literary critics and cultural historians have referred to these developments in broad, general terms, but specific documentary evidence has been confined to a few instances.In recent years, literary history as traditionally defined has been increasingly influenced by 'book history', the study of the material conditions of the production and reception of texts. The history of nineteenth-century literature especially has benefited from this development. Much less attention has been given to the impact of distribution and reading patterns after 1880, in spite of the rich material preserved in publishers' and distributors' archives. Our aim is to draw on this material to produce a new account of the material factors at work in one of the most revolutionary periods in the history of English fiction. One major outcome of the research will be a contribution to the relevant volume of the Oxford History of the Novel in English, a multi-volume, collaborative work of literary history to be published by Oxford University Press under the general editorship of Patrick Parrinder, who is also Principal Investigator in the present project.

从1880年到1940年，英国小说的生产和发行发生了巨大的变化。1880年，大多数新小说仍然以三卷厚册的形式出版，通过穆迪的流通图书馆等渠道进入有限的中上层阅读人群。更成功的小说后来出现在一卷再版，但这些仍然超出了大多数潜在读者的能力。60年后，普通小说比维多利亚时期的“松松垮垮的怪物”短得多，公共图书馆、廉价的订阅图书馆、读书俱乐部和新的大众市场平装书使几乎每个人都能阅读小说阅读。在这个项目中，我们关心的不是大众识字的广泛社会学影响，而是它对小说写作和阅读的具体影响。小说家和他们的出版商如何应对小说市场和读者群的变化？特别是，两种效果将被详细研究。一方面，有人声称，新的市场条件导致了新的审查形式，而另一方面，小说家开始被视为（对或错）根据阅读大众所感知的不同文化和教育水平来剪裁他们的作品。1880年后，每一代新一代小说家中的领军人物都开始为他们的艺术主张新的自由，打破了维多利亚时代的拘谨和沉默的界限，回应了人们对道德和性解放的普遍渴望。但图书馆和其他出版机构对违反公共道德持谨慎态度，出版商依赖它们进行销售;这导致了一些著名案例中审查的威胁或现实，尽管其程度尚不清楚。对小说创作的第二个强烈影响是流行的“高眉毛”，“中等眉毛”和“低眉毛”读者的不同类别的概念，每个人都需要并要求不同的产品。毫无疑问，一些小说家和出版商感到压力，要符合这些期望，但这种情况有多普遍？文学批评家和文化史学家们对这些发展进行了广泛的概括，但具体的文献证据却仅限于少数几个例子。近年来，传统意义上的文学史越来越受到“书籍史”的影响，书籍史研究文本产生和接受的物质条件。19世纪的文学史尤其受益于这一发展。尽管出版商和发行商的档案中保存了丰富的资料，但1880年以后发行和阅读模式的影响却少得多。我们的目的是利用这些材料，对英国小说史上最具革命性的时期之一中起作用的物质因素进行新的描述。这项研究的一个主要成果将是对《牛津英语小说史》相关卷的贡献，这是一部多卷的文学史合作作品，将由牛津大学出版社在帕特里克帕林德的总编辑下出版，他也是本项目的首席研究员。