Race, Ethnicity and Publishing in America

255 Pages·2014·2.266 MB·English

by  Cécile Cottenet (eds.)

Race, Ethnicity and Publishing in America
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Race, Ethnicity and
Publishing in America
Edited by
Cécile Cottenet
Associate Professor, A ix- Marseille Université, France
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Cécile Cottenet 2014
Individual chapters © Contributors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-39051-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission.
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Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-48265-8 ISBN 978-1-137-39052-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137390523
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Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
Acknowledgments ix
Notes on the Contributors xi
Introduction 1
Cécile Cottenet
Part I Historiography
1 Early African American Historians: A Book History and
Historiography Approach – The Case of William Cooper
Nell ( 1816– 1874) 29
Claire Parfait
2 The Publication and Reception of The Southern Negro and
the Public Library 51
Cheryl Knott
Part II Bilingualism and Ethnic Identity
3 Widening the Paradigm of American Literature: Small Presses
in the Publishing and Creation of New Hispanic Texts 79
Manuel Brito
4 Franco- American Writers: I n- visible Authors in
the Global Literary Market 95
Peggy Pacini
Part III Challenging Stereotypes: A Gendered Perspective
5 Reacting to the White Publishing World: Zora Neale
Hurston and Negro Stereotypes 123
Claudine Raynaud
6 Beyond Mainstream Presses: Publishing Women of Color as
Cultural and Political Critique 143
Matilde Martín González
v
vi Contents
Part IV Re- visiting the Canon
7 The Roots of Cane: Jean Toomer in The Double Dealer and
Modernist Networks 171
John K. Young
8 Popular Book Clubs and the Marketing of African
American Best- Sellers 193
Laurence C ossu- Beaumont
9 The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley in Slavery’s Recollective
Economies, 1773 to the Present 210
Max Cavitch
Epilogue – An Experience in Literary Archaeology:
Publishing a Black Lost Generation 231
Samuel Blumenfeld
Index 243
List of Figures
1.1 Anonymous. Frontispiece, Colored Patriots of the Revolution
(1855). Collection of the American Antiquarian Society.
Reprinted courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society
(AAS), Worcester, Massachusetts 38
9.1 Frontispiece portrait, Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various
Subjects, Religious and Moral (London: A. Bell, 1773) 211
9.2 From Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress, &
Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-trade
by the British Parliament (Philadelphia: J. P. Parke, 1808). 
Courtesy of the Chapin Library of Rare Books, Williams
College 213
9.3 Cover, James Allen, Narrative of the Life of James Allen,
alias George Walton, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York,
alias Burley Grove, the highwayman: being his death-bed
confession, to the warden of the Massachusetts state prison
(Boston: Harrington & Co., 1837). Collection of the
Boston Athenaeum. Reprinted by permission 215
9.4 Title page, Phillis Wheatley, Memoir and Poems of Phillis
Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave. Also, Poems by
a Slave (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838). Courtesy of the
Library Company of Philadelphia 217
9.5 Dust jacket cover, from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Trials of
Phillis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters
with the Founding Fathers, copyright © 2003. Reprinted
by permission of Basic Civitas Books, a member of the
Perseus Books Group 222
vii
List of Tables
2.1 Publications receiving review copies and publishing reviews
of The Southern Negro and the Public Library 66
7.1 Toomer’s pre- Cane periodical publications 182
7.2 Double Dealer contents, September 1922 183
viii
Acknowledgments
I am especially grateful to all the patient contributors to the volume,
who kindly bore with my endless emails and calls for revision, some-
times complying with tight schedules.
I owe an important debt to my friend and colleague Professor Sophie
Vallas at A ix-M arseille Université (AMU) for selflessly c o- organizing the
original conference from which these essays originated, helping to edit
this collection, and simply, for her encouragement. She deserves more
credit than I can express here.
I wish to thank Professor Gérard Hugues, head of the LERMA (EA 853)
at Aix- Marseille Université who chose to support and fund this project;
and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania for sponsoring our 2012 conference. I am beholden to
all my colleagues at AMU who chaired the different panel sessions, as
well as to Marie- Alice Levaudel for her enthusiasm and helpful initia-
tives. I am especially grateful to Sarah Brouillette and Mélanie J oseph-
Vilain for participating in the advisory board for this conference. My
acknowledgments go to the speakers who made our debates so rich and
lively – Laura Atkins, Zetta Elliott, Alison Fagan, Philippa Ireland, John
Jennings, Kinohi Nishikawa, Jana Möller and Beth leRoux; and to all the
scholars who participated in the early evaluation of the papers.
I am deeply grateful to my colleague Ruth Menzies who helped in
the careful editing of the papers; my intellectual and personal debt is
to Hélène Christol for our always fruitful conversations and her help in
revising the introduction.
I wish to extend my gratitude to Ben Doyle, Commissioning Editor for
Literature at Palgrave Macmillan, for believing in this project, to Sophie
Ainscough, Editorial Assistant, for her advice and her patience, to
Joanna North for her painstaking editing, and to Palgrave Macmillan’s
reader for the wonderful expertise and suggestions.
The editor wishes to thank the following individuals for facilitating
the making of this book: Lisa Bowden at Kore Press, Dr Joy G. Carew,
Rhea Côté Robbins, Wayne G. Hammond at the Chapin Library,
Williams College; Jared Leeds, Joan Pinkvoss at Aunte Lute Books,
Barbara Jane Reyes, and Jennifer Navarre at The Historic New Orleans
Collection Williams Research Center.
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