Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon: The Modern Library Series, 1917-1955

225 Pages·2014·2.178 MB·English

by  Lise Jaillant

Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace
Modernism,
Middlebrow and the
Literary Canon
Lise Jaillant
Number 7
MODERNISM, MIDDLEBROW AND THE
LITERARY CANON: THE MODERN LIBRARY
SERIES, 1917–1955
Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace
Series Editors: Kate Macdonald
Ann Rea
Editorial Board: Kristin Bluemel
David Carter
Stella Deen
Christoph Ehland
David Finkelstein
Jaime Harker
Nick Hubble
Elizabeth Maslen
Rebecca N. Mitchell
Victoria Stewart
Titles in this Series
1 Th e Business of the Novel: Economics, Aesthetics and the
Case of Middlemarch
Simon R. Frost
2 Fashioning the Silver Fork Novel
Cheryl A. Wilson
3 Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim
and Elizabeth Taylor
Erica Brown
4 John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity
Kate Macdonald and Nathan Waddell (eds)
5 Women’s University Fiction, 1880–1945
Anna Bogen
6 William Clark Russell and the Victorian Nautical Novel:
Gender, Genre and the Marketplace
Andrew Nash
Forthcoming Titles
Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction:
Th e Art of Female Beauty
Kirby-Jane Hallum
Th e Gothic Novel and the Stage: Romantic Appropriations
Francesca Saggini
www.pickeringchatto.com/ltpm

MODERNISM, MIDDLEBROW AND THE
LITERARY CANON: THE MODERN LIBRARY
SERIES, 1917–1955
by
Lise Jaillant
PICKERING & CHATTO
2014
Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH
2252 Ridge Road, Brookfi eld, Vermont 05036-9704, USA
www.pickeringchatto.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without prior permission of the publisher.
© Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2014
© Lise Jaillant 2014
To the best of the Publisher’s knowledge every eff ort has been made to contact
relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues. 
Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions.
british library cataloguing in publication data
Jaillant, Lise, author.
Modernism, middlebrow and the literary canon: the Modern Library Series,
1917–1955. – (Literary texts and the popular marketplace)
1. Publishers and publishing – New York (State) – New York – History – 20th
century. 2. Series (Publications) – History – 20th century. 3. Books – Market-
ing – History – 20th century. 4. Books and reading – History – 20th century. 5.
Modernism (Literature) – History and criticism.
I. Title II. Series
070.5’097471’0904-dc23
ISBN-13: 9781848934931
Web-PDF ISBN: 9781781444559
ePub ISBN: 9781781444641
∞

Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American
National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by CPI Books
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
List of Figures and Tables xi
Introduction: ‘Good Taste in Reading’ 1
1 H. G. Wells, Science and Sex in the Modern Library, 1917–31 19
2 ‘Th e Modern Library is Something Magnifi cent’: Sherwood Anderson
and the Canon of American Literature 41
3 Blurring the Boundaries: Detective Fiction and Joyce’s A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man in the Modern Library 63
4 Woolf in the Modern Library: Bridging the Gap between Professional
and Common Readers 83
5 Canonical in the 1930s: Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop
in the Modern Library Series 103
6 ‘If it’s Like Any Introduction You Ever Read, I’ll Eat the Jacket’:
Faulkner’s Sanctuary, the Modern Library and the Literary Canon 123
Conclusion 145
Notes 151
Works Cited 181
Index 199

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Th is research, which fi nds its origins in my doctoral dissertation, has been sup-
ported by a number of fellowships from the University of British Columbia, the
Bibliographical Society of America, the Newberry Library, and the University at
Buff alo Libraries and Humanities Institute. I also received travel grants from the
Bibliographical Society of Canada, the Modernist Studies Association and the
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing to present my
work at conferences. I am grateful to my PhD supervisor, John Xiros Cooper,
and to the members of my committee, Leslie Howsam and Ira Nadel, who have
spent a lot of time advising me in various ways. Special thanks to my external
examiner, James L. W. West III, for his helpful comments and encouragements.
Th anks to Gordon Neavill for sharing his impressive knowledge of the Mod-
ern Library with me. For introducing me to Book History, I thank my instructors
in the Print Culture programme at Simon Fraser University: Michael Everton
and Leith Davis. For introducing me to New Modernist studies, I am grateful to
my instructors in the MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck,
University of London: Joseph Brooker, Laura Salisbury and Rebecca Beasley.
Finally, this research would not have been possible without the help of
librarians, archivists and curators at Columbia University Library, Newberry
Library, the Library of Congress, Princeton University Library and the Uni-
versity at Buff alo.
Earlier versions of my chapters on James Joyce and on Willa Cather have
appeared in James Joyce Quarterly and Studies in the Novel. I am grateful to Sean
Latham and Tim Boswell for their assistance. Jonathan Cerf and Oxford Univer-
sity Press also gave me permission to reproduce copyrighted images.
– ix –