Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain 1914-1950

ISBN-13: 9780198203292 / Angielski / Twarda / 1992 / 304 str.

Joseph McAleer

Opis

Before the advent of television, reading was among the most popular of leisure activities. `Light' fiction - romances, thrillers, westerns - was the sustenance of millions in wartime and in peace. This lively and scholarly study examines the size and complexion of the reading public and the development of an increasingly commercialized publishing industry in the early twentieth century.Joseph McAleer uses a wide variety of sources, including the Mass Observation Archive and previously confidential publishers' records, to explore the nature of popular fiction and its readers. He analyses the editorial policies which created the success of Mills & Boon and D. C. Thomson, and also charts the rise and fall of the Religious Tract Society as a popular publisher.

Before the advent of television, reading was among the most popular of leisure activities. In this lively and scholarly study, Joseph McAleer draws on a wide variety of resources to examine the size and complexion of the reading public and the development of an increasingly commercialized publishing industry in the early twentieth century.

Recenzje

an engaging and path-breaking book whose importance is obvious from the title. McAleer has done his research with commendable enterprise.

O autorze

Free-lance writer and historian