Modernist Authorship and Transatlantic Periodical Culture - (Historicizing Modernism) by Amanda Sigler (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Exploring the collaborative, consumer-oriented Modernism that developed out of both planned and fortuitous groupings in periodicals, this book traces the serialization and advertisement of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw in Collier's (1898), Rudyard Kipling's Kim in McClure's and Cassell's (1900-1901), James Joyce's Ulysses in the Little Review (1918-1920), and Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street" in the Dial (1923).

These periodicals-whether mass-market journals or literary magazines-adjust our perceptions of authors elsewhere known to be "in charge" and reveal the central role that compromise and chance played in the emergence of Modernism.

Bringing to light new research from multiple archives, Sigler pieces together original records of journals' advertising strategies, previously unpublished editorial correspondence, and long-buried letters to unearth the forgotten stories behind the texts we think we know so well.

Review Quotes

"In this illuminating study, Amanda Sigler brilliantly demonstrates the value of studying Victorian and modernist texts in the journals and little magazines that first serialised them. Startlingly, she proves that chance, not authorial autonomy, initially coloured works that later seemed sacrosanct." --Anne Fogarty, Professor of James Joyce Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland

"Examining the control authors ceded to collaborative editorial and production processes and reader feedback, Sigler's meticulously researched book highlights the distinct role magazine serial publication played in making European modernism part of American culture. A major contribution to modernist and periodical studies both, and a clarion call to bring periodical archives into the modernism classroom." --Mark S. Morrisson, Professor and Head of English, Penn State University, USA

"Sigler's study is a stimulating addition to the critical literature on late nineteenth and early twentieth-century periodicals." --Forum for Modern Language Studies

About the Author

Amanda Sigler received her PhD from the University of Virginia before joining Baylor University, USA. She has published articles on Modernism, James Joyce, and periodicals in scholarly publications on both sides of the Atlantic. She wrote the chapter on modernist magazines for The Cambridge History of Modernism, edited by Vincent Sherry.