Empires of Print: Adventure Fiction in the Magazines, 1899-1919

Patrick Scott Belk

Taylor & Francis, May 8, 2017 - Literary Criticism - 264 pages

At the turn of the twentieth century, the publishing industries in Britain and the United States underwent dramatic expansions and reorganization that brought about an increased traffic in books and periodicals around the world. Focusing on adventure fiction published from 1899 to 1919, Patrick Scott Belk looks at authors such as Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle, and John Buchan to explore how writers of popular fiction engaged with foreign markets and readers through periodical publishing. Belk argues that popular fiction, particularly the adventure genre, developed in ways that directly correlate with authors’ experiences, and shows that popular genres of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emerged as one way of marketing their literary works to expanding audiences of readers worldwide. Despite an over-determined print space altered by the rise of new kinds of consumers and transformations of accepted habits of reading, publishing, and writing, the changes in British and American publishing at the turn of the twentieth century inspired an exciting new period of literary invention and experimentation in the adventure genre, and the greater part of that invention and experimentation was happening in the magazines.

Contents

• Print in Transition Magazines Adventure and Threats of New Media 18801920: 1
• An Imperial History of Late NineteenthCentury Periodical Expansion: 16
• Adventure and the Threat of New Media in Conrads Lord Jim 1899: 63
• The Technological Scene of HG Wellss TonoBungay 1909: 92
• Conan Doyles Essays on Photography and The Lost World 1912: 129
• John Buchan in AllStory Weekly 1915 and The Popular Magazine 1919: 163
• Lost in Transit Sax Rohmer Conan Doyle and Baroness Orczys Eldorado 1913 in Africa: 194
• British and American Books Magazines and Newspapers Titles by Year 18601922: 201
• Representative Authors Payments for First UK US Serial Rights 18841938: 204
• Average Delivery Time of Mail Packet Steamers by Decade 18401920: 208
• Major International Copyright Legislation Affecting Authors 18801920: 209
• Commercial Statistics of the Principal Countries of the World 190406: 210
• American Pulp Magazine Circulations 190022: 214
• Advertising Ratios in Representative British and American Magazines 1919: 216
• List of Magazines Newspapers etc Found Loose Kenya Gazette May 1913: 217
• Combined Monthly Totals from List of Magazines Newspapers etc Kenya Gazette 190022: 218
• Bibliography: 219
• Index: 241

About the author

Patrick Scott Belk is Assistant Professor of English in the Multimedia and Digital Culture program at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, USA, principal investigator for The Pulp Magazines Project, and webmaster for the Joseph Conrad Society UK.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Empires of Print: Adventure Fiction in the Magazines, 1899-1919
• Author: Patrick Scott Belk
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, 2017
• ISBN: 1317185056, 9781317185055
• Length: 264 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Journalism; Language Arts & Disciplines / Publishers & Publishing Industry; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Modern / 19th Century; Literary Criticism / Modern / 20th Century; Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Historical Events