Title Reading up : middle-class readers and the culture of success in the early twentieth-century United States / Amy L. Blair.

Publication Info.

Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2012.

Online access
Online ebook. Open Access via JSTOR.

Item Status

Description	1 online resource (ix, 250 pages)
	data file
Physical Medium	polychrome
Bibliography	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents	Introduction: Cultivating taste in a mass-market world -- Mr. Mabie tells what to read -- The compromise of Silas Lapham -- James for the general reader -- Misreading The house of Mirth -- The comforts of romanticism -- Epilogue: Reading up into the twenty-first century.
Summary	A person who reads a book for self-improvement rather than aesthetic pleasure is 'reading up.' Reading Up is Amy Blair's engaging study of popular literary critics who promoted reading generally and specific books as vehicles for acquiring cultural competence and economic mobility. Combining methodologies from the history of the book and the history of reading, to mass-cultural studies, reader-response criticism, reception studies, and formalist literary analysis, Blair shows how such critics influenced the choices of striving readers and popularized some elite writers. Framed by an analysis of Hamilton Wright Mabie's role promoting the concept of reading up during his ten-year stint as the cultivator of literary taste for the highly popular Ladies' Home Journal, Reading Up reveals how readers flocked to literary works they would be expected to dislike. Blair shows that while readers could be led to certain books by a trusted adviser, they frequently followed their own path in interpreting them in unexpected ways.
Local Note	JSTOR Books at JSTOR Open Access
Subject	Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 1846-1916 -- Knowledge and learning -- Literature.
	Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 1846-1916.
	Literature.
	Ladies' home journal.
	Englisch, ...
	Leser, ...
	Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer Bitterfeld.
	American literature -- Appreciation -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
	American literature -- Appreciation.
	United States.
	History.
Chronological Term	20th century
Subject	Popular literature -- United States -- History and criticism.
	Popular literature.
	Books and reading -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
	Books and reading.
	Middle class -- Books and reading -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
	Success in literature.
	Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
	POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Cultural Policy.
	Middle class -- Books and reading.
	SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
	Success in literature.
	SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Popular Culture.
	Literature and society.
	LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
	Literatur.
	Leserin.
	Bestseller.
Chronological Term	1900-1999
Genre/Form	Electronic books.
	Criticism, interpretation, etc.
	History.
Other Form:	Print version: Blair, Amy L., 1972- Reading up. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2012 (DLC) 2011015287
ISBN	9781439906699 (electronic book)
	1439906696 (electronic book)
	9781592134502
	9781592134519
	1439906688
	9781439906682
	1283319691
	9781283319690
Standard No.	9786613319692

Title Reading up : middle-class readers and the culture of success in the early twentieth-century United States / Amy L. Blair.

Item Status

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