Description
Book SynopsisIn The House of Blackwood, David Finkelstein exposes for the first time the successes and failures of this onetime publishing powerhouse. The value of the archive Finkelstein studies is its completeness, the depth of the ledger material, and the extraordinary longevity of the firm.
Trade Review“The House of Blackwood is one of the best studies of a publishing house to be produced since book history was reinvented a couple of decades ago. Perceptively applying theory to archives, Finkelstein’s study illuminates the publisher’s relations to authors, and much more—it shows how successive generations of Blackwoods responded to familial, economic, trade, workshop, and political pressures, the changing demographics of readers, and the altered conditions of publishing in Edwardian Britain. It is a pleasure to read and a model for future work in the field.”
—Robert L. Patten,Rice University
“The House of Blackwood offers as much meat for the nineteenth-century historian, the student of business history—even present-day publishing executives!—as it does for the literary critic.”
—Julie Dawson ForeWord Reviews
“[The book’s] examination of balance-sheets, together with the close reading of correspondence and memoirs, makes an engaging as well as important contribution to our knowledge of the Victorian culture of the book.”
—Leslie Howsam The Library
“This monograph is a further important addition to [Penn State Press’s] significant series on the history of the book.”
—William Baker Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
“I should finally mention that this is an exceptionally well documented study.”
—Alan Boehm Libraries and Culture
“The House of Blackwood is an engaging and extremely valuable piece of research that will benefit literary scholars and publishing historians for years to come.”
—Karen Carney Sharp News
“Elegantly designed and illustrated, beautifully written, and full of fresh material presented in a lively manner, The House of Blackwood is a notable addition to Victorian publishing history.”
—Solveig C. Robinson Victorian Periodicals Review
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. Setting the Scene
2. Finding Success: Blackwood’s, 1860–1879
3. Africa Rewritten: The Case of John Hanning Speke
4. Reade Revised: A Woman Hater and the Women’s Medical Movement
5. Shifting Ground: Blackwood’s, 1880–1912
6. Creating House Identities: Nineteenth-Century Publishing
Memoirs and the Annals of a Publishing House
7. “A Grocer’s Business”: William Blackwood III
and the Literary Agents
Conclusion
Appendices 1-3: Introduction
Appendix 1. Blackwood & Sons Publishing Statistics, 1860–1910
Appendix 2. Blackwood’s Magazine Sales, 1856–1915
Appendix 3. Margaret Oliphant Sales, 1860–1897
Notes
Bibliography
Index
