Published by Himself: Self Publication and Nineteenth-Century African American Literature

FAIN: FT-270594-20

Bryan Sinche
University of Hartford (West Hartford, CT 06117-1599)

Research and writing of one chapter of a book on self-published writings by African Americans in the nineteenth century.

PUBLISHED BY HIMSELF blends book historical and literary critical methods to examine the extensive and significant corpus of self-published African American writing of the long nineteenth century. In PUBLISHED BY HIMSELF, I focus on the material facts of publication and underscore the significance of publication as a tool for negotiating the challenging economic world in which so many African Americans lived. Additionally, because PUBLISHED BY HIMSELF recovers and evaluates a set of writings that has escaped critical attention, it invites a new set of authors into discussions of nineteenth-century African American writing, and forces us to reconsider the economic value and signifying power of printed books, and the meanings of publication and authorship.

Associated Products

Published by the Author: Self-Publication in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (Book)
Title: Published by the Author: Self-Publication in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature
Author: Bryan Sinche
Abstract: Publication is an act of power. It brings a piece of writing to the public and identifies its author as a person with an intellect and a voice that matters. Because nineteenth-century Black Americans knew that publication could empower them, and because they faced numerous challenges getting their writing into print or the literary market, many published their own books and pamphlets in order to garner social, political, or economic rewards. In doing so, these authors nurtured a tradition of creativity and critique that has remained largely hidden from view. Bryan Sinche surveys the hidden history of African American self-publication and offers new ways to understand the significance of publication as a creative, reformist, and remunerative project. Full of surprising turns, Sinche’s study is not simply a look at genre or a movement; it is a fundamental reassessment of how print culture allowed Black ideas and stories to be disseminated to a wider reading public and enabled authors to retain financial and editorial control over their own narratives.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674131/published-by-the-author/
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-4696-74
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

---