Abstract
Much talk of transatlantic literature focuses on the influence of British writing in America, but Rezek emphasizes that nineteenth-century cultural flows went both directions. To make the point, Rezek recalls the construction of James Fenimore Cooper as an international literary phenomenon through his inclusion in London publisher Richard Bentley’s ‘Standard Novels’ series. Scholarship has not yet grappled with the fact that Cooper, an American, was the most reprinted author in the series (or that, in fact, his aptly named The Pilot was the series’ first release in 1831). Rezek argues that Cooper’s centrality to the Standard Novels necessitates a revision to standard histories of the nineteenth-century novel drawn on national lines.
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Research for this chapter was made possible by a fellowship from the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL. I would also like to acknowledge the helpful feedback of the Americanist Research Colloquium at the University of California, Los Angeles; the attendees at a joint meeting of the Seminars for the History of the Book and American Literature and Culture at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University (especially Leah Price, who delivered a response to this material); the James Fenimore Cooper Society, which sponsored a panel at the American Literature Association Conference in 2015 where I presented a portion of this chapter; and Paul Westover and Ann Rowland, who provided invaluable editorial suggestions and guidance.
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Rezek, J. (2016). Bentley’s Standard Novelist: James Fenimore Cooper. In: Westover, P., Rowland, A. (eds) Transatlantic Literature and Author Love in the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32820-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32820-1_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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