The Formation of the Victorian Literary Profession

A fascinating study into the development of the Victorian literary profession that examines literary and visual representations of authorship.

Richard Salmon (Author)

9781107566897, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 October 2015

302 pages, 7 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.44 kg

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

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'.

1. Introduction: living authors
2. Thomas Carlyle and the luminous author
3. Thackeray and the novel of literary apprenticeship
4. Dickens and the profession of labour
5. Broken idols: the development of the working-class author
6. Moving statues: the iconography of the 'printing woman'
7. Conclusion: the disenchantment of the author.

Subject Areas: Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]