Results by title
171 books match the query 'Books & Reading' and 3 start with g
Gems of Art on Paper
Illustrated American Fiction and Poetry, 1785–1885Georgia Brady Barnhill
University of Massachusetts Press, 2021
In the immediate aftermath of the Revolutionary War, only the wealthiest Americans could afford to enjoy illustrated books and prints. But, by the end of the next century, it was commonplace for publishers to load their books with reproductions of fine art and beautiful new commissions from amateur and professional artists.
Georgia Brady Barnhill, an expert on the visual culture of this period, explains the costs and risks that publishers faced as they brought about the transition from a sparse visual culture to a rich one. Establishing new practices and investing in new technologies to enhance works of fiction and poetry, bookmakers worked closely with skilled draftsmen, engravers, and printers to reach an increasingly literate and discriminating American middle class. Barnhill argues that while scholars have largely overlooked the efforts of early American illustrators, the works of art that they produced impacted readers' understandings of the texts they encountered, and greatly enriched the nation's cultural life.
Genre Worlds
Popular Fiction and Twenty-First-Century Book CultureKim Wilkins, Beth Driscoll, and Lisa Fletcher
University of Massachusetts Press, 2022
Works of genre fiction are a source of enjoyment, read during cherished leisure time and in incidental moments of relaxation. This original book takes readers inside popular genres of fiction, including crime, fantasy, and romance, to reveal how personal tastes, social connections, and industry knowledge shape genre worlds. Attuned to both the pleasure and the profession of producing genre fiction, the authors investigate contemporary developments in the field—the rise of Amazon, self-publishing platforms, transmedia storytelling, and growing global publishing conglomerates—and show how these interact with older practices, from fan conventions to writers’ groups.
Sitting at the intersection of literary studies, genre studies, fan studies, and studies of the book and publishing cultures, Genre Worlds considers how contemporary genre fiction is produced and circulated on a global scale. Its authors propose an innovative theoretical framework that unfolds genre fiction’s most compelling characteristics: its connected social, industrial, and textual practices. As they demonstrate, genre fiction books are not merely texts; they are also nodes of social and industrial activity involving the production, dissemination, and reception of the texts.
Great Literary Friendships
Janet Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2022
Close friendships are a heart-warming feature of many of our best-loved works of fiction. From the poignant schoolgirl relationship between Jane Eyre and Helen Burns to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn’s adventures on the Mississippi, fictional friends have supported, guided, comforted—and at times betrayed—the heroes and heroines of our most popular plays and novels.
This book explores twenty-four literary friendships and together with character studies and publication history, describes how each key relationship influences character, determines the plot, or underlines the theme of each literary work. It shows how authors have by turn celebrated, lamented, or transformed friendships throughout the ages. Some friendships—Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Holmes and Watson, and even Bridget Jones and pals—have taken on creative lives beyond the bounds of their original narratives.
Including a broad scope of literature from writers such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, John Steinbeck, Alice Walker, Dona Tartt, and Margaret Atwood, this book is the ideal gift for your literature-loving friend.