Dissertation Information for Gordon Barrick Neavill NAME: - Gordon Barrick Neavill
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- University of Chicago (USA) (1984)
ADVISORS: - Howard W. Winger
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Zena Sutherland - Edward Benjamin Shils
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: THE MODERN LIBRARY SERIES
Abstract: The Modern Library series, established in 1917, played a significant role in American cultural life for half a century. It was the leading American series of hardbound reprints of important works of literature and thought. Its small, inexpensive volumes were stocked at vi rtua 11 y every bookstore and major department store in the country. The Modern Library, more than any other publishing enterprise prior to the advent of quality paperbacks in the mid- 1950's, made the establis hed classics of world literature, together with important modern works, readily available to American readers. The Modern Library was conceived by Albert Boni, a young Greenwich Village bookseller and occasional publisher. The firm Boni & Liveright, which became one of the most important literary publishers of the 19205, was established to publish the series. In its early years, the Modern Li brary--as, its name impl ied--was inseparable from the modernist movement and the revolt against Victorian culture. The books Boni included in the series were primarily by post-Victorian British and Continental writers. There were very fev, books by American authors . The only pre-nineteenth century works were by authors like Pran~ois Vil10n and Voltaire whom the modernists claimed as spiritual forebears.
Boni IS involvement with the Modern Library ended in the summer of 1918, when he left the firm after a series of disagreements with Horace Liveright. In 1925, Liveright, who was more interested in publishing new writers than in reprint publishing, sold the Modern Library to Bennett Cerf, a young Boni & Liveright vice-president who wanted to go into publishing for himself. Cerf establ ished the Modern Library, Inc., in partnership with Donald S. Klopfer. Two years later, they established Random House as a subsidiary of the Modern Library to publish other books; in 1936 the Nodern Library became a subsidiary of Random House. Cerf and Klopfer set out to i nvi gorate and expand the Modern Li brary. They added more American authors, and, while maintaining a generalJy modern emphasis, began to include older classics as well. In 1931 they establi.shed .Modern Library Giants, whose larger format enabled them to include longer works and omnibus volumes. Also in the 1930s they began systematically discontinuing slower-selling titles. By the end of that decade only about one-third of the titles from the Boni & Liveright series remained in the Modern Library. During the years of American involvement in World War II, publishers had to contend with increased demand for books at a time when paper rationing made that demand difficult to satisfy. The Modern Library was unable to keep all its titles continuously in print. Despite wartime conditions, a new series, the Illustrated t~odern Library, was launched in 1943, but because Random House lacked the paper to print the volumes, it was l egally published by A. S. Barnes & Co . and reverted to Random House after the war.
The burgeoning importance of the college market after the war led to the increasing academization of the Modern Library. Modern Library College Editions, a paperbound series intended for classroom use, began in 1950. Older introductions were gradually discarded in favor of new introductions commissioned f'rom and directed toward the academi c community. .Al so in the 1 ~50s the Modern Library began to face serious competition for the first time. Several of the best titles in the series were withdrawn by their original publishers who wanted to include them in reprint series of their own . With the advent of quality paperbacks, the Moder·n Library's audience increasingly had the option of buying paper-back editions of titles that previously had been availabl e only in the Modern Library. Attempts in the 1960s to enable the Modern Library to compete more effectively with pa perbacks were unsuccessful , and in 1970 a decision was made to cease adding new titles to the series. Thereafter, many of the less profitabl e titles were remaindered or allowed to go out of print. Then, as the prices of both paperback and hardbound books escalated, Random House began to hope that there might again be a market for comparatively inexpensive hardbound editions of classics. In the spring of 1977 thirty-two Modern Library titles were reissued in newly designed jackets and bindings. Each publishing season since has seen an increase in the number of Modern Library reissues in print. The study is based primarily on the Random House archives and other archival collections . It seeks to explain the Modern Library's success and eventual decline at three levels: the social and intellectual context in which the Modern Library existed, the prevailing institutional patterns of the book industry and the economics of the book trade over the course of the Modern Library's existence, and the internal history of the series itself.
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MPACT Scores for Gordon Barrick Neavill A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:15:20
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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