Literary Careers in the Modern Era

"Literary Careers in the Modern Era is the first study of the shape and diversity of the literary career in the 20th and 21st centuries. It engages questions such as: what counts as a successful career for a literary author and how do norms of success change over time? And given the explosion of self-publishing in the digital era, who now counts as an 'author'? Although literary criticism often focuses on an individual author's career, what is meant by this term is rarely examined. This collection of essays, which brings together scholarship on a wide range of authors from Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, seeks to address this gap. It investigates how literary careers are made and unmade, and the relationship between the career, the personal life of an author and public celebrity. The essays demonstrate that the modern literary career is complex phenomenon, subject to multiple social and psychological pressures"--