{"product_id":"what-a-library-means-to-a-woman-edith-wharton-and-the-will-to-collect-books-hardback-9781517907037","title":"What a Library Means to a Woman; Edith Wharton and the Will to Collect Books (Hardback) 9781517907037","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWhat a Library Means to a Woman\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eEdith Wharton and the Will to Collect Books\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eSheila Liming (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781517907037\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 28 April 2020\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e272 pages, 14\u003cbr\u003e21.6 x 14 x 3.8 cm, 0.468 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e \"A generous reassessment of Edith Wharton and materialized cultures. With this exceptional interpretation of the modern bookshelf, Sheila Liming offers page after page of unanticipated insight into gender and literary production. This is mandatory reading for those of us committed, like Wharton, to harboring ‘an ethos of collecting’-and for those of us, like this brave critic, committed to Wharton herself.\"-Scott Herring, Indiana University \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \"This imaginative, deeply learned study illuminates the role of libraries and books for Edith Wharton, but it also provides an important examination of what the art of collecting books in the late nineteenth century tells us about how women writers and readers created networks of intellectual labor and ambition. Lyrically written and brilliantly argued, Sheila Liming’s study is also an indispensable meditation on the act of collecting and the unseen worlds ordinary and extraordinary readers and writers created through it.\"-Stephanie Foote, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Parvenu’s Plot: Gender, Culture, and Class in the Age of Realism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \"It makes sense that Liming would posit the meaning of libraries in general in a book about what a library means \u003ci\u003eto a woman\u003c\/i\u003e: the universalization of intellectual inheritance passes by necessity through women. Sheila Liming’s fascinating book proves her to be an exemplary heir.\"-\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \"An enormously valuable addition to our understanding of one of the twentieth century’s most literary bibliophiles.\"-\u003ci\u003eALH Online Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExamining the personal library and the making of self\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When writer Edith Wharton died in 1937, without any children, her library of more than five thousand volumes was divided and subsequently sold. Decades later, it was reassembled and returned to The Mount, her historic Massachusetts estate. \u003ci\u003eWhat a Library Means to a Woman \u003c\/i\u003eexamines personal libraries as technologies of self-creation in modern America, focusing on Wharton and her remarkable collection of books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSheila Liming explores the connection between libraries and self-making in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American culture, from the 1860s to the 1930s. She tells the story of Wharton’s library in concert with Wharton scholarship and treatises from this era concerning the wider fields of book history, material and print culture, and the histories (and pathologies) of collecting. Liming’s study blends literary and historical analysis while engaging with modern discussions about gender, inheritance, and hoarding. It offers a review of the many meanings of a library collection, while reading one specific collection in light of its owner’s literary celebrity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat a Library Means to a Woman\u003c\/i\u003e was born from Liming’s ongoing work digitizing the Wharton library collection. It ultimately argues for a multifaceted understanding of authorship by linking Wharton’s literary persona to her library, which was, as she saw it, the site of her self-making.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContents\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. The Library as Space: Self-Making and Social Endangerment in \u003ci\u003eThe Decoration of Houses\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSummer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. The Library as Hoard: Collecting and Canonicity in \u003ci\u003eThe House of Mirth \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eEline Vere\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3. The Library as Network: Affinity, Exchange, and the Makings of Authorship\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4. The Library as Tomb: Monuments and Memorials in Wharton’s Short Fiction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConclusion\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Univ Of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52619249975576,"sku":"9781517907037","price":66.67,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/what-a-library-means-to-a-woman-edith-wharton-and-the-will-to-collect-books-hardback-9781517907037","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}