American Literature in Transition, 1910–1920. Ed. by Mark W. Van WienenAmerican Literature in Transition, 1920–1920. Ed. by Ichiro TakayoshiAmerican Literature in Transition, 1940–1950. Ed. by Christopher VialsAmerican Literature in Transition, 1950–1960. Ed. by Steven BellettoAmerican Literature in Transition, 1980–1990. Ed. by D. Quentin MillerAmerican Literature in Transition, 1990–2000. Ed. by Stephen J. Burn

Abstract

This new overview of American literature of the past century seeks to re-evaluate its field by considering the dynamic forces which led to structural change over the course of individual decades. Each volume comprises twenty or more chapters arranged into sections by literary genre, thematic concepts, or treating intersections with other art-forms. For the more bibliographically inclined reader there is surprisingly little focus on the physical artefacts of literature: this is not a history of publishing or book design, nor even of marketing and readership. The materiality of literature nevertheless underpins several chapters, and a few deserve special notice here. In the 1910–20 volume, Mike Chasar contributes a helpful survey of the appearance of popular verse in non-book contexts such as greetings cards and lantern slides, while Jayne E. Marek usefully covers the large literature on the birth of the Little Magazine—a story continued in the Twenties by Greg Barnhisel. This is complemented by Brooks E. Hefner's account of pulp magazines, which at this time were still printed on pulpwood paper: a particular revelation is the remarkable growth in ‘aviation pulp fiction’ in the months following Lindenbergh's transatlantic flight in 1927. The second volume also includes a chapter on ‘Americans Abroad’ by Craig Monk which describes the flourishing English-language magazine culture of Paris, from Gargoyle in 1921 to Eugene Jolas's transition from 1927. Lise Jaillant questions the traditional narrative of new, small-scale and often Jewish publishers undermining the mainstream houses by issuing a new canon of modern literature, while Loren Glass examines some of the same publishers in their involvement in the major obscenity trials of the decade.