The Preface

Building on insights from the fields of textual criticism, bibliography, narratology, authorship studies, and book history,  The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century  examines the role that prefaces played in the development of professional authorship in America. Many of the prefaces written by American writers in the twentieth century catalogue the shifting landscape of a more self-consciously professionalized trade, one fraught with tension and comprom