The Masculine Middlebrow, 1880-1950 - by K MacDonald (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Who was the early twentieth-century masculine middlebrow reader? How did his reading choices respond to his environment? This book looks at British middlebrow writing and reading from the late Victorian period to the 1950s and examines the masculine reader and author, and how they challenged feminine middlebrow and literary modernism.

Review Quotes

"Both forceful and elegant, the essays in this collection evince the myriad ways in which middlebrow readers found radical, challenging ideas at every turn. And, perhaps more importantly, they sketch out how popular reading tastes played a central role in establishing new male identities for an expanding middle class in a world reshaped by industrialization, world wars, universal education and female suffrage. In allowing us a glimpse of this process, The Masculine Middlebrow encourages a reappraisal of some fundamental assumptions about the past hundred years of British literature." Edward White, TLS

"This is a superb and much-needed collection of essays, which proves that 'middlebrow' is not necessarily 'feminine'. It greatly enriches our understanding of middlebrow cultural production by its attention to journalism and periodical culture, anthologies and education, politics and colonial contexts. The line-up of contributors is remarkably fine, and their work demonstrates a wide range of possible approaches to the study of the middlebrow." Faye Hammill, University of Strathclyde, AHRC Middlebrow Network leader

"The collection covers an impressive amount of ground and constructs a nuanced, complex, and fascinating network of literary forms, authors and critics, publishing venues, and commercial strategies. I cannot do justice in this limited space to the many fine essays Macdonald brings together. While some of the essays have a stronger connection tothe nineteenth century than others, all are richly informative. The thoughtful considerations of social, cultural, and commercial transformations and their effects on literature and representations of gender form an immensely valuable back (or belated) formation against which to reread late Victorian literary culture." Teresa Mangum, Victorian Studies Review

About the Author

DAVID CARTER Professor of Australian Literature and Cultural History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia CLARE CLARKE Doctoral Researcher, School of English, Queen's University Belfast, UK CLIVE E HILL University of London International Programme, UK CHRISTOPHER HILLIARD Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow, University of Sydney, Australia NICOLA HUMBLE Professor of English Literature, Roehampton University, UK SUE MCPHERSON Lecturer in English Literature, Sheffield Hallam University, UK CAROLINE POLLENTIER Doctoral Student, University of Paris 7, France ANNE REA Lecturer in English Literature, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, USA AMY TECTOR Photo Archivist, Library and Archives, Canada ANNA VANINSKAYA Lecturer in Victorian Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK JONATHAN WILD Lecturer in Victorian Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK