
Late Victorian Literary Collaboration
Authorship, Co-Authorship and Popular Fiction
Annachiara Cozzi(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Published on 3. September 2024
Book
Hardback
312 pages
978-1-83553-686-5 (ISBN)
Description
An exciting new contribution to the expanding but still largely uncharted territory of collaboration studies, Late Victorian Literary Collaboration is the first book-length study of the trend for collaborative writing that emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
As a result of the rapidly growing literary market, the years between 1870 and the turn of the century witnessed an unprecedented flow of collaboratively written novels. In the 1890s, co-authorship became a craze, with literary partnerships multiplying and fiction co-written by twenty and more authors appearing in the pages of popular magazines. By 1900, however, the trend had already reversed, and it quickly slipped into oblivion. Late Victorian Literary Collaboration investigates the factors that made the period so conducive to collaboration, tracing the reasons for its success and subsequent decline. Drawing on a vast range of original sources, the book discusses and compares different models of collaboration, from life-long, exclusive partnerships to one-time, widely-advertised collaborative ventures between best-selling novelists. It deals with authors such as Walter Besant, Somerville and Ross, Andrew Lang, H.R. Haggard and Rhoda Broughton, all favourites of the Victorian public but subsequently neglected and only recently reevaluated. By unpacking the debate that developed around co-authorship in the periodical press of the time, the book also sheds light on how collaborative authorship was imagined by the general public, and illustrates how the trend effectively - if temporarily - challenged Victorian assumptions about the author as a solitary genius.
As a result of the rapidly growing literary market, the years between 1870 and the turn of the century witnessed an unprecedented flow of collaboratively written novels. In the 1890s, co-authorship became a craze, with literary partnerships multiplying and fiction co-written by twenty and more authors appearing in the pages of popular magazines. By 1900, however, the trend had already reversed, and it quickly slipped into oblivion. Late Victorian Literary Collaboration investigates the factors that made the period so conducive to collaboration, tracing the reasons for its success and subsequent decline. Drawing on a vast range of original sources, the book discusses and compares different models of collaboration, from life-long, exclusive partnerships to one-time, widely-advertised collaborative ventures between best-selling novelists. It deals with authors such as Walter Besant, Somerville and Ross, Andrew Lang, H.R. Haggard and Rhoda Broughton, all favourites of the Victorian public but subsequently neglected and only recently reevaluated. By unpacking the debate that developed around co-authorship in the periodical press of the time, the book also sheds light on how collaborative authorship was imagined by the general public, and illustrates how the trend effectively - if temporarily - challenged Victorian assumptions about the author as a solitary genius.
Reviews / Votes
'A major new study in Victorian authorship studies.' -Kirsty Bunting, Senior Lecturer in English, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
13 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-83553-686-5 (9781835536865)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Annachiara Cozzi is a postdoctoral researcher in English literature at the University of Pavia, Italy.
Content
Introduction
Walter Besant and James Rice
Edith OE. Somerville and Martin Ross
Fashionable Collaborations
Literary Collaboration and the Late Victorian Imagination
Literary Collaboration and the Figure of the Author
Appendix: A selection of co-authored novels, ca. 1860-1920 (first editions)
Walter Besant and James Rice
Edith OE. Somerville and Martin Ross
Fashionable Collaborations
Literary Collaboration and the Late Victorian Imagination
Literary Collaboration and the Figure of the Author
Appendix: A selection of co-authored novels, ca. 1860-1920 (first editions)