Forget me not : the rise of the British literary annual, 1823-1835 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Harris, Katherine D., author.
Imprint:	Athens : Ohio University Press, [2015]
Description:	xiv, 395 pages ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Series in Victorian studies Series in Victorian Studies.
Subject:	English literature -- 19th century. Gift books -- Great Britain. Femininity in literature. Art, Victorian. Women and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century. Art, Victorian. English literature. Femininity in literature. Gift books. Women and literature. England. Great Britain. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10241731

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:	Rise of the British literary annual, 1823-1835
ISBN:	9780821421369 0821421360 9780821445204
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"By November 1822, the British reading public had already voraciously consumed both Walter Scott's expensive novels and Rudolf Ackermann's exquisite lithographs. The next decade, referred to by some scholars as dormant and unproductive, is in fact bursting with Forget Me Nots, Friendship's Offerings, Keepsakes, and Literary Souvenirs. By wrapping literature, poetry, and art into an alluring package, editors and publishers saturated the market with a new, popular, and best-selling genre, the literary annual. In Forget Me Not, Katherine D. Harris assesses the phenomenal rise of the annual and its origins in other English, German, and French literary forms as well as its social influence on women, its redefinition of the feminine, and its effects on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century print culture. Harris adopts an interdisciplinary approach that uses textual and social contexts to explore a forum of subversive femininity, where warfare and the masculine hero were not celebrated. Initially published in diminutive, decoratively bound volumes filled with engravings of popularly recognized artwork and "sentimental" poetry and prose, the annuals attracted a primarily middle-class female readership. The annuals were released each November, making them an ideal Christmas gift, lover's present, or token of friendship. Selling more than 100,000 copies during each holiday season, the annuals were accused of causing an epidemic and inspiring an "unmasculine and unbawdy age" that lasted through 1860 and lingered in derivative forms until the early twentieth century in both the United States and Europe. The annual thrived in the 1820s and after despite --or perhaps because of--its "feminine" writing and beautiful form"--

Review by Choice Review

A good companion to Lorraine Janzen Kooistra's Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture, 1855-1875 (CH, Jan'12, 49-2448), the present title explores an often-neglected cultural artifact, the 19th-century British literary annual. Harris (San José State Univ.) analyzes the evolution of the literary annual, Continental influences, parodies, illustrations, relations between editors and reviewers, the "poetess tradition," and the origins of the Gothic short story. Carefully researched and well documented, the volume will be a boon to those interested in Romantic and Victorian literature, history, and culture, and of particular appeal to those interested in Romantic and Victorian women poets. The four useful appendixes provide a chronological list of titles of British and American literary annuals; a list of prominent contributors to British annuals; the names of editors and publishers; and the full text of some of the writing discussed. The book suggests many topics for future research. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --J. Don Vann, emeritus, University of North Texas

Review by Choice Review

Forget me not : the rise of the British literary annual, 1823-1835 /

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