What's worth collecting? What's worth remembering? These are. These gems of the 19th century by women like Phelps, Warner, Louisa May Alcott, these physical objects filled with words that talk back to the popular understanding of what American literature was in the 1800's. These are women who wrote wrote wrote and outsold men like Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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You move every two years. You are comfortable, but you certainly aren't wealthy enough to afford an apartment with much space. Shouldn't you be saving the money you spend ($7 here, $15 there) on old, obscure 19th century novels written by women? Why would you begin curating a personal library of antique women's novels? How many times can you pack and unpack these tomes?
These are good questions. But picture this: you have loved reading since an early age. Writing and reading have always come naturally to you. As a graduate student in American literature, you choose to read, write, research and teach texts by marginalized American writers. All the books that make up American letters but aren't considered "American classics" worth canonizing are the texts that fascinate you.
Picture this: for the sake of finally settling on a dissertation topic, you find yourself writing on (among other texts), 19th century novels by women. These novels were wildly popular in their time. Novels like Susan Warner's 1850 The Wide, Wide World, a book that flew off the shelves upon its publication and was outsold only by Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.
It turns out that middle class white women were prolific writers in the 1800's. They were often writing so much because writing (about socially 'appropriate' topics, often religion or etiquette) was a way they could be financially independent and have their voices heard. Not only were massive numbers of white women authors prolific, but many of their novels were wildly popular and financially successful. Let me offer a quick series of figures to demonstrate my point:
Herman Melville's Moby Dick sold 3,215 copies in his life (source: melville.org)
Walt Whitman asked famous female author Fanny Fern if she'd promote Whitman's Leaves of Grass; he needed a successful writer to market his publication. It didn't sell much until thirty years later (source: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/whitman/leavesofgrass.html)
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter sold 7,700 copies in his lifetime (source: introduction to the Norton Critical Edition of the Scarlett Letter, ed. Leland Person)
whereas
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) sold 300,000 copies in 3 months (source: introduction to the Norton Critical Edition of UTC, ed. Elizabeth Ammons)
After an initial printing of 750 copies, Warner's The Wide, Wide World was in such demand that by 1852 it was on its 14th edition (source: Anna Warner quoting Susan Warner's journal entry of 1852 in her biography Susan Warner, p. 345)
The Gates Ajar by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1868) had sold 80,000 copies by 1900 (source: Helen Sootin Smith's introduction to the Harvard University Press 1964 edition of the book)
What's the takeaway? White, middle class Protestant women authors were what a large number of Americans were reading. Contrary to canonical representations of great (male) American literature.
***Food for Thought***
The fact that bestsellers in the 19th century were largely by white women is also due to social circumstances: ie, virulent systemic and social racism, homophobia, and prejudice against disabled people. These women's whiteness allowed them ownership of their own time and (for the most part) their bodies. It allowed them access to education, writing materials, the time and space to write, and access to publishers. Poor, handicapped authors who weren't white or passing as white were not barred from publishing books, but they faced significant barriers. Their status as perceived moral and social inferiors often foreclosed the possibility of widespread sales and popularity.
So really, why would I begin collecting 19th century women's novels? Because these books were what was selling in 1800s America, and what folks then were reading, even though we don't necessarily get taught that in school today.
In my downtime, I began making journals out of old books. Careful- this can foster addiction to haunting used bookstores and searching for beautiful old hardbound texts to turn into new journals. Usually, books this old have mildewed pages or flaky, brittle binding that makes them difficult to read; transforming the book into a journal gives it new life. Old books go from being paper weights or shelf eye candy to functional journals that pay homage to authors past. This gives me an excuse to float around antique stores, used bookstores, even Goodwill, looking for potential journals.
Picture this: one day in an antique book store, you encounter a 1864 copy of E. Wetherell's The Old Helmet. E. Wetherell also wrote The Wide, Wide World; it was Susan Warner's pen name until she went public as an author.
You hold the dark blue leather-bound book in your hands. The gilt lettering of the title is embossed on the cover, creating indented texture you can feel with your finger. Rainbow red orange yellow green flowers spray across the front. It's love at first sight. This is a relic from a time past, proof of Warner's voice that talks back to traditional understandings of 19th century American literature as a place for men and Emily Dickinson.
So why start a personal collection of these novels? Because they reflect a different kind of history, a prolific publication history that I hope to continue learning about. These novels, and novelists like Sui Sin Far, William Apess, Mary L Day (she wrote Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl in 1859), Francis Harper Watkins, and Lucy Colman are marginalized authors who refused to be silent. These are published writers that our contemporary world doesn't pay as much attention to as, say, Walt Whitman.
These are voices who clamored for language. These are voiceful. With these novels surrounding me in my shelves at home, every morning is church.
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