The Penn State Series
in the History of the Book

The House of Blackwood
Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era
By David Finkelstein

In The House of Blackwood, David Finkelstein exposes for the first time the successes and failures of this one-time publishing powerhouse.

(2002) 208 pages, 9 illustrations
— $55.00 cloth

Conrad Richter
A Writer's Life
By David R. Johnson

“This is a well-researched and well-written psychological profile of an insecure, superstitious, but nonetheless rather appealing man. Johnson knows how to tell a story, describing in detail Richter's unlikely path toward becoming an important writer.” — Red Hobson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

(2001) 448 pages, 20 illustrations — $39.50 cloth

Publisher to the Decadents
Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson
By James G. Nelson

Publisher to the Decadents chronicles the experiences of Leonard Smithers (1861-1907), a key figure in the literary culture of late Victorian England. In his day he was known primarily for publishing books of upscale erotica. He became the publisher of choice for the Decadents, including most notably Oscar Wilde and Audrey Beardsley.

(2000) 448 pages, 35 illustrations — $40.00 cloth

George Palmer Putnam
Representative American Publisher
By Ezra Greenspan

A cultural biography focusing not only on Putnam's life, but also on the culture that surrounded him and bolstered the rise of modern literary publishing.

(2000) 528 pages, 21 illustrations — $45.00 cloth

Everyday Life in the German Book Trade
Friedrich Nicolai as Bookseller and Publisher in the Age of Enlightenment
By Pamela E. Selwyn

An account of the workings of the eighteenth-century German book trade as revealed by the career of Friedrich Nicolai (1733-1811).

(2000) 436 pages, 1 map — $75.00 cloth

As Ever Yours
The Letters of Max Perkins and Elizabeth Lemmon
Edited by Roger L. Tarr

The letters contained in As Ever Yours reveal an epistolary love story—and they provide fresh insights into Perkins the man and Perkins the editor.

(2003) 288 pages, 19 illustrations — $29.95 cloth

Imaging the Early Medieval Bible
Edited by John Williams

A unique exploration of the beginnings of biblical illustration and decoration.

(1999) 256 pages, 20 color/99 B&W illustrations — $82.50 cloth, $29.95 paper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wall-paper” and the History of Its Publication and Reception
A Critical Edition and Documentary Casebook
Compiled and edited by Julie Bates Dock

“Julie Bates Dock has provided us with an extraordinarily useful book which sheds new light on a story that remains, however one chooses to interpret it, one of the most extraordinary performances in American literature.” — Science Fiction Studies

(1998) 192 pages, 10 illustrations — $42.50 cloth, $18.95 paper

Of Making Many Books
A Hundred Years of Reading, Writing, and Publishing
By Roger Burlingame
With a New Introduction by Charles Scribner III

“This is the story of Scribner's bookmaking… a story which Roger Bulingame, with access to fascinating correspondence, has told so congenially and so fairly that I would wish the book in the hands of every beginning writer.” — Atlantic Monthly

(1996) 384 pages, 1 illustration — $71.50 cloth, $24.50 paper

The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 1920-1930
By James M. Hutchisson

“Hutchisson's intelligent, straightforward critical biography of Lewis during the decade in which he published his most significant works will be a useful addition to the existing body of American literary criticism and will prove interesting to students and scholars at most levels.” — Choice

(1996) 272 pages, 32 illustrations — $44.00 cloth, $18.95 paper

The Fortunes of the Courtier
The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano
By Peter Burke

“The Fortunes of the Courtier is an important contribution to intellectual history and to the history of the book. It demonstrates how bibliography, textual criticism, and library history can illuminate the mentality of an age.”
— Magill's Literary Annual 1997

(1996) 222 pages, 8 illustrations — $55.00 cloth, $23.95 paper
For sale in the U.S. and Canada only

Book History
The European Reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano
Edited by Ezra Greenspan and Jonathan Rose

The yearbook of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing.

1-year subscription: $52.00 (Outside U.S. $56.00)