The essays gathered in this volume represent renewed interest in the history of the American book. Inspired by the work of William Charvat, the contributors trace the complex web of "reciprocal influences" among authors, readers, and the publishing trade in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.

Contributors to the volume are Martha Banta, Lawrence Buell, Steven Fink, Frances Smith Foster, Michael T. Gilmore, Jay Grossman, Julian Markels, Meredith L. McGill, Grantland S. Rice, Susan S. Williams, and Michael Winship. Their essays examine the poetry of Whitman and Melville; the fiction of Hawthorne, Melville, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Twain, and James Weldon Johnson; the essays of Margaret Fuller and William Charvat; and the early Afro-Protestant press and <i>Life</i> magazine. The essays also consider the importance of the transatlantic book trade, the construction of literary careers, and the material conditions of authorship and reading.

These essays, all previously unpublished, will be of interest to students and scholars of book history as well as of American literature and culture.

<b>Steven Fink</b> and <b>Susan S. Williams</b> are associate professors in the Department of English at The Ohio State University. Fink is the author of <i>Prophet in the Marketplace: Thoreau's Development as a Professional Writer.</i> Williams is the author of <i>Confounding Images: Photography and Portraiture in Antebellum American Fiction.</i>