Lost and Found: Working Class Writers and Mainstream Publishers in 1930s Britain
Anne Mellar
Abstract
Working-class writers often struggled to find their way to print in the early 20th century. But while common authors and readers have been paid increasing attention, such writers have been less pursued from a publishing perspective. This article engages with the losing and finding of working-class writing in 1930s Britain. Though notice is often given to such stepping-stones to print as patronage and left-wing periodicals, critical recoveries reveal a fashion for mainstream publishers’ interventions in this field. This study examines how while this class of literature has often gone missing from publishing history, worker-writers’ novels and short-story collections knocked on the door of mainstream literary production. Taking stock of their struggles to get published, it broadly assesses the extent of working-class authors’ breakthroughs into the literary culture of the Thirties by covering issues of literary tokenism, paratextual politics and commerce. The article concludes that the venture between working-class authorship and mainstream publishing culture worked counter-productively, in the main, to exclude these minor publications from the literary mainstream.
Anne Mellar
Abstract
Working-class writers often struggled to find their way to print in the early 20th century. But while common authors and readers have been paid increasing attention, such writers have been less pursued from a publishing perspective. This article engages with the losing and finding of working-class writing in 1930s Britain. Though notice is often given to such stepping-stones to print as patronage and left-wing periodicals, critical recoveries reveal a fashion for mainstream publishers’ interventions in this field. This study examines how while this class of literature has often gone missing from publishing history, worker-writers’ novels and short-story collections knocked on the door of mainstream literary production. Taking stock of their struggles to get published, it broadly assesses the extent of working-class authors’ breakthroughs into the literary culture of the Thirties by covering issues of literary tokenism, paratextual politics and commerce. The article concludes that the venture between working-class authorship and mainstream publishing culture worked counter-productively, in the main, to exclude these minor publications from the literary mainstream.
