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I can’t stop thinking about how all those years in college and grad school and we never discussed how *publishing* influences the canon.
Like never did we say: well maybe Melville’s publisher sucked at marketing and that’s why he fell into obscurity.
Or that the reason we know Dreiser is that he was friends with Frank Norris who worked at Doubleday (if I remember correctly)
And yes this is a FINE Saturday topic for rumination, even discussion!
We talk about the gender and races of authors but not the people who brought their books to market.
I mean honest to god I think I could write an entire history of Am Lit through the lens of publishing and it would...not be repeating previous scholarship?
I think the book would go something like this: “it is now, and has always been, all about connections.”
