Women Writers and Their Publishers

A new account of women's publishing history, demonstrating women's active involvement in the making and marketing of their books.

Using publishers' archives alongside bibliographical evidence, Michelle Levy reveals how women made and sold their books. Documenting complex economic and personal relationships forged between women and their publishers, she presents a new history of women's publishing. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.Examining the period during which women's participation in literary marketplaces soared, Michelle Levy expands understandings of female authorship, moving beyond exceptional women writing in the major genres; of book trades, by tracing the importance of profit sharing and limited sale of copyright, by which authors benefited from reprinting; and of book history, by addressing the pervasive influence of gender on book culture during the long eighteenth century. Through detailed analysis of surviving publishers' archives and correspondence, she convincingly argues that women were actively involved in all decisions relating to the production, marketing, circulation, and reception of their books. Women in fact wrote not merely texts but books: they drafted with attention to the shape their writing would take in book form and were directly involved in the processes by which their words were transformed into material and commercial objects. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.