Professional imaginative writing in England, 1670-1740

the long version

Professional Imaginative Writing in England, 1670-1740 provides a much-needed overview of the social, political, economic, and institutional contexts within which imaginative writing developed during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It was in this period that such writing became a widely-consumed commodity, as literacy improved, women entered the literary workplace, newspapers and periodicals emerged as distinct forms, and the novel became a recognized literary genre. The growth of writing as a profession was one of the most significant forces operating upon the nature of imaginative writing between 1670 and 1740, when large numbers of individuals were intent upon developing literary products that could succeed in the market-place. Taking proper account of this process involves a radical reconsideration of the period's literary sociology and of our present-day thinking about what is truly valuable in its writing. The book is divided into three sections. Part I looks at the conceptual, ideological, and material conditions within which writers in this period worked, exploring the symbiotic relationship between an economy that offered greatly enhanced opportunities for literate and imaginative individuals to exploit their talents, and the legitimation of authorship as a means of making a living. Part II is devoted to the analysis of textual sites within which the status of professional vis a vis amateur writing can be observed in the process of emergence and contestation, while Part III looks at the forms of resistance that developed in the Pope, Swift, Gay, and Fielding circle towards professional writers, some of them female, who wished to have their work taken seriously while earning a decent living. Hammond explores the distinctiveness of individual writers as well as the historical conditions in which they produced their work, and offers a new account of the period's literature that foregrounds the implications of the professionalization of authorship for a large number of writers, male and female, writing in all the major genres.