Edgar Allan Poe and the masses
Subtitle: the political economy of literature in antebellum America
By: Terence Whalen.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 328
Subjects: Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 -- Authorship.; Economics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Authorship -- Economic aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Capitalism and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Literature publishing -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Authors and readers -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Popular literature -- United States -- History and criticism.
Description: Edgar Allan Poe has long been viewed as an artist who was hopelessly out of step with his time. But as Terence Whalen shows, America's most celebrated romantic outcast was in many ways the nation's most representative commercial writer. Whalen explores the antebellum literary environment in which Poe worked, an environment marked by economic conflict, political strife, and widespread foreboding over the rise of a mass audience.

The book shows that the publishing industry, far from being a passive backdrop to writing, threatened to dominate all aspects of literary creation. Faced with financial hardship, Poe desperately sought to escape what he called "the magazine prison-house" and "the horrid laws of political economy." By placing Poe firmly in economic context, Whalen unfolds a new account of the relationship between literature and capitalism in an age of momentous social change.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [275]-322) and index.