Charvat, William; Bruccoli, Matthew J. [editor]. The Profession of Authorship in America, 1800-1870: The Papers of William Charvat; Foreword by Howard Mumford Jones. Ohio State University Press, 1968. First Edition. [6210]
Red & blue cloth, title in gilt to spine, 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches, brief record of purchase on ffep, text clean, xviii., 327 pp., dust jacket very good with slight sunning to the spine panel. Very good in very good dust-jacket. Hardcover.
"It was the working conditions of authors as paid craftsmen that was to form the substance of Mr. Chavat's work in progress, at the time of his death, The Profession of Authorship in America. He planned it as a systematic and comprehensive investigation of the triadic relationship of author-publisher-reader: and this his work on the project was far from finished, enough has survived in his published essays and in extensive unpublished material found in his files after his death to indicate fully, if not finally, the dimensions of the monumental project he had undertaken." - publisher.
"This is an attempt to write the history of American literature in terms of the profession of writing and the business of publishing." - Introduction.
William Charvat (1905-1966), b. New York City, educated at New York University (B.S. and M.A.) and at the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.). He was from 1944 the professor of American literature in the Department of English at Ohio State University.
"William Charvat, in his individual scholarship, was a pioneer in his approach toward the analysis and interpretation of American literary culture. Today, most scholars take for granted that the study of the book trade is a necessary prerequisite to our understanding of the influence that the business of writing had not only on literary production, but on the shape of an artist's aesthetic vision. Yet Charvat’s Literary Publishing in America, 1790-1850 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959) and The Profession of Authorship in America, 1800-1870 (published posthumously by Ohio State University Press, 1968) were groundbreaking works in the study of American book history." - Ohio State University website.