Editors:
- This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access.
- Maps the role of Anglo-American popular writing and advice culture by examining its origins in the mid-nineteenth century
- Examines literary advice’s transformation in the twenty-first century in its multiple forms including manuals, How-To books, memoir, podcasts, YouTube, and more
- Fills a gap in contemporary histories of creative writing by focusing on the literary advice industry in the context of commercial writing culture, popular amateur writing culture, and the self-help industry
Part of the book series: New Directions in Book History (NDBH)
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Table of contents (16 chapters)
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Front Matter
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From Fictioneering to Wattpad
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Front Matter
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Case Studies of Literary Advice
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Front Matter
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Adopting and Resisting Literary Advice Culture
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Front Matter
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About this book
This open access collection of essays examines the literary advice industry since its emergence in Anglo-American literary culture in the mid-nineteenth century within the context of the professionalization of the literary field and the continued debate on creative writing as art and craft. Often dismissed as commercial and stereotypical by authors and specialists alike, literary advice has nonetheless remained a flourishing business, embodying the unquestioned values of a literary system, but also functioning as a sign of a literary system in transition. Exploring the rise of new online amateur writing cultures in the twenty-first century, this collection of essays considers how literary advice proliferates globally, leading to new forms and genres.
Reviews
“A fascinating study of ‘how to write,’ a fundamental trend in literary culture that has longtime remained under the radar, bringing together key aspects of the meaning of literature in society, far beyond the individual needs or desires of all those eager to start writing and end up publishing. It combines careful historical reconstruction of literary advice and smart contextualization of theadvice culture in its informal as most business oriented models, unearthing many aspects of the blurring of boundaries between professional and amateur, reader and writer, individual and community, workshop and market, that profoundly reshape our thinking on the institution of literature.” (Jan Baetens, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium)
Editors and Affiliations
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University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Anneleen Masschelein, Dirk de Geest
About the editors
Anneleen Masschelein is Associate Professor in Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her book, The Unconcept: The Freudian Uncanny in Late-Twentieth Century Theory (2011) is an intellectual history of the conceptualization of the uncanny.
Dirk de Geest is Professor in Dutch Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He has published widely in the domain of modern Dutch literature and of literary theory.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Writing Manuals for the Masses
Book Subtitle: The Rise of the Literary Advice Industry from Quill to Keyboard
Editors: Anneleen Masschelein, Dirk de Geest
Series Title: New Directions in Book History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53614-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53613-8Published: 16 December 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53616-9Published: 28 December 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-53614-5Published: 15 December 2020
Series ISSN: 2634-6117
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6125
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 412
Number of Illustrations: 18 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of the Book, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Creative Writing, Literature and Technology/Media, Culture and Technology