Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon

Lise Jaillant is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at Loughborough University, UK.

"Jaillant’s study, through its evidence of careful research and painstaking work in the archives, offers a fresh perspective on the high/low debate told from the vantage point of one of the century’s leading publishers." --Matthew Levay, Idaho State University, The Year’s Work in English Studies"Consistently insightful, surprising, and concise, Jaillant’s book makes an important contribution to both modernist and middlebrow studies." - Emma West, Cardiff University, Modernism/ Modernity"Jaillant’s study provides fascinating insight into the marketing methods of the Modern Library" --Loren Glass, University of Iowa, Los Angeles Review of Books"An important new contribution…part of the more conscientiously transatlantic move in modernist studies." --Amy L. Blair, Marquette University, American Literary History"A solid investigation of an overlooked phenomenon. Graphs and illustrations lend substance to the various discussions. Students of Modernism will be grateful." --Gary Day, De Montfort University, Times Higher Education"Jaillant’s study offers a detailed and carefully drawn study of the Modern Library’s version of Woolf and her contemporaries." --Claire Battershill, Simon Fraser University, Woolf Studies Annual"A fascinating study of book production and the marketing of culture in the early 20th century." --Rebecca Bowler, Keele University, Times Higher Education 'What are you reading' section"The book is carefully researched and full of interesting facts...The case studies in Modernism, Middlebrow, and the Literary Canon provide an excellent addition to a course on book history and modernism." --Jaime Harker, University of Mississippi, SHARP News"shrewd and agile study." --Natalie Wright, Women: A Cultural Review"Meticulous unpacking of just how contentious the players on opposite sides of the Modern Library debates actually were. At this point enter Anthony Comstock, the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. . . . Jaillant tells his story in ways that bring a human face to the censors and their brand of censorship." --Sanford Pinsker, Franklin and Marshall College, Sewanee Review"Jaillant has made a valuable contribution to both the history of the book and our understanding of the literary canon." --Troy J. Bassett, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History"Immensely illuminating" – the book "greatly changes the way we think about the middlebrow, canon formation, and the canon itself."--Erik Fuhrer, University of Notre Dame, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America"An engagingly written and rigorously researched study of the Modern Library" – "Jaillant’s book constitutes a meaningful contribution to the field of middlebrow studies" --Hannah McGregor, Simon Fraser University, James Joyce Quarterly"Jaillant’s study is particularly valuable . . . for her welcome complication of the commonly oversimplified understanding of the midcentury ‘battle of the brows.’" - Greg Barnhisel, Duquesne University (Pittsburgh), Journal of Modern Literature

• Introduction: 'Good Taste in Reading' 1 H G Wells, Science and Sex in the Modern Library, 1917-31 2 'The Modern Library is Something Magnificent': Sherwood Anderson and the Canon of American Literature 3 Blurring the Boundaries: Detective Fiction and Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the Modern Library 4 Woolf in the Modern Library: Bridging the Gap between Professional and Common Readers 5 Canonical in the 1930s: Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop in the Modern Library Series 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 Conclusion