Lise Jaillant
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474417242
- eISBN:
- 9781474434560
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417242.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter focuses on the introductions that T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf wrote for the Oxford World’s Classics editions of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone and Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental ...
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This chapter focuses on the introductions that T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf wrote for the Oxford World’s Classics editions of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone and Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (both published in 1928). Oxford University Press, whose London branch bought the World’s Classics from Grant Richards in 1905, was known for its Bibles and scholarly works, not for literary experimentation. So why would such a staid publisher include an introduction by Eliot, a writer with “a sustained interest in rotting orifices”? Why would a series associated with an old English university value the opinion of Woolf, who repeatedly criticised the patriarchal structure of the academic system? This chapter argues that, by the late 1920s, Woolf and Eliot had become well-known names recognisable by the lower middle class, the self-educated and other readers of the World’s Classics. They lent their growing reputation to boost sales of reprints, and in turn, they benefited from their association with a large-scale publishing enterprise (including access to a wide American readership). The World’s Classics contributed to transforming the image of these modernist writers from infamous avant-gardists to members of the artistic establishment.Less
This chapter focuses on the introductions that T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf wrote for the Oxford World’s Classics editions of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone and Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (both published in 1928). Oxford University Press, whose London branch bought the World’s Classics from Grant Richards in 1905, was known for its Bibles and scholarly works, not for literary experimentation. So why would such a staid publisher include an introduction by Eliot, a writer with “a sustained interest in rotting orifices”? Why would a series associated with an old English university value the opinion of Woolf, who repeatedly criticised the patriarchal structure of the academic system? This chapter argues that, by the late 1920s, Woolf and Eliot had become well-known names recognisable by the lower middle class, the self-educated and other readers of the World’s Classics. They lent their growing reputation to boost sales of reprints, and in turn, they benefited from their association with a large-scale publishing enterprise (including access to a wide American readership). The World’s Classics contributed to transforming the image of these modernist writers from infamous avant-gardists to members of the artistic establishment.
Thomas F. Bonnell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199532209
- eISBN:
- 9780191700996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532209.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter describes the development of a cultural maturity as expressed in the multi-volume collections of classics. Beginning in 1765, publications developed across a range of genres from such ...
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This chapter describes the development of a cultural maturity as expressed in the multi-volume collections of classics. Beginning in 1765, publications developed across a range of genres from such iconic series as Everyman's Library, Oxford World's Classics, The Modern Library, and The Library of America. The multi-volume poetry collections embodied several late eighteenth century phenomena, including a new awareness of nationalism, cultural construction of an aesthetic realm, and an explosion of consumerism. The convergence of these factors led to a large-scale production and distribution of book classics. A different picture emerges relative to poetry collections following 1765, when two or more series at once often competed for purchasers The publishers of poetry collections dealt with pressures to mimic other products, to keep expanding the basic project, and generally to steal away market share, open up new market niches, and enlarge the market altogether.Less
This chapter describes the development of a cultural maturity as expressed in the multi-volume collections of classics. Beginning in 1765, publications developed across a range of genres from such iconic series as Everyman's Library, Oxford World's Classics, The Modern Library, and The Library of America. The multi-volume poetry collections embodied several late eighteenth century phenomena, including a new awareness of nationalism, cultural construction of an aesthetic realm, and an explosion of consumerism. The convergence of these factors led to a large-scale production and distribution of book classics. A different picture emerges relative to poetry collections following 1765, when two or more series at once often competed for purchasers The publishers of poetry collections dealt with pressures to mimic other products, to keep expanding the basic project, and generally to steal away market share, open up new market niches, and enlarge the market altogether.
