LEADER 04445nam 2200613 450 001 9910463371303321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-8018-9933-8 035 $a(CKB)3240000000064644 035 $a(MH)012743140-3 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000606635 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11390924 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000606635 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10582142 035 $a(PQKB)11608620 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4398339 035 $a(OCoLC)794700392 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse1438 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL4398339 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr11161056 035 $a(EXLCZ)993240000000064644 100 $a20100607d2011 uy| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aReading fiction in antebellum America $einformed response and reception histories, 1820-1865 /$fJames L. Machor 210 1$aBaltimore :$cJohns Hopkins University Press,$d2011. 215 $a1 online resource (xiv, 403 p. ) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8018-9874-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $apt. 1. Reading reading historically. Historical hermeneutics, reception theory, and the social conditions of reading in antebellum America ; Interpretive strategies and informed reading in the antebellum public sphere -- pt. 2. Contextual receptions, reading experiences, and patterns of response: four case studies. "These days of double dealing": informed response, reader appropriation, and the tales of Poe ; Multiple audiences and Melville's fiction: receptions, recoveries, and regressions ; Response as (re)construction: the reception of Catharine Sedgwick's novels ; Mercurial readings: the making and unmaking of Caroline Chesebro'-- Conclusion: American literary history and the historical study of interpretive practices. 330 $aJames L. Machor offers a sweeping exploration of how American fiction was received in both public and private spheres in the United States before the Civil War. Machor takes four antebellum authors--Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Catharine Sedgwick, and Caroline Chesebro'--and analyzes how their works were published, received, and interpreted. Drawing on discussions found in book reviews and in private letters and diaries, Machor examines how middle-class readers of the time engaged with contemporary fiction and how fiction reading evolved as an interpretative practice in nineteenth-century America. Through careful analysis, Machor illuminates how the reading practices of nineteenth-century Americans shaped not only the experiences of these writers at the time but also the way the writers were received in the twentieth century. What Machor reveals is that these authors were received in ways strikingly different from how they are currently read, thereby shedding significant light on their present status in the literary canon in comparison to their critical and popular positions in their own time. Machor deftly combines response and reception criticism and theory with work in the history of reading to engage with groundbreaking scholarship in historical hermeneutics. In so doing, Machor takes us ever closer to understanding the particular and varying reading strategies of historical audiences and how they impacted authors' conceptions of their own readership.--Book jacket. 606 $aAmerican fiction$y19th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aReader-response criticism$zUnited States 606 $aAuthors and readers$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th century 606 $aBooks and reading$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th century 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAmerican fiction$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aReader-response criticism 615 0$aAuthors and readers$xHistory 615 0$aBooks and reading$xHistory 676 $a813/.309 700 $aMachor$b James L.$0907303 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910463371303321 996 $aReading fiction in antebellum America$92029744 997 $aUNINA 999 $aThis Record contains information from the Harvard Library Bibliographic Dataset, which is provided by the Harvard Library under its Bibliographic Dataset Use Terms and includes data made available by, among others the Library of Congress