Abstracts
Abstract
This essay uses unpublished archival material to explore what this reveals about the commissioning, gestation, editing, and publishing of several key works of literary criticism by C. S. Lewis: The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936), The Oxford History of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (1954), Studies in Words (1960), and The Discarded Image (1964). Our analysis looks at a range of connecting areas, including the complex labour structures and systems of patronage which operated during the period under consideration, as well as the peer review processes, assessments of potential reading markets, the practicalities of authorial revision and typesetting, and the intersections between pedagogical practice and publishing which all these demonstrate. The materials in the archives we drew upon to conduct this research were author marketing questionnaires; book cover designs; letters between Lewis, his press editors, bibliographers, and press reviewers; and cuttings from post-publication reviews. This case study makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role played by mid-twentieth century academic publishers to the production of knowledge in the English-speaking world.
Résumé
Les archives inédites d’ouvrages de critique littéraire de C. S. Lewis (The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition [1936], The Oxford History of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama [1954], Studies in Words [1960] et The Discarded Image [1964]) sont d’intérêt notamment en ce que révèlent la commande, la gestation, la révision et la publication des oeuvres. Notre analyse fait ressortir les convergences entre l’organisation du travail et le mécénat propres à la période, le processus d’évaluation par les pairs et les études de marché, ainsi que la mise en livre par les interventions de l’auteur et la composition typographique. Sont alors mis en évidence des liens entre la pratique pédagogique et l’édition. Pour mener cette analyse, nous avons interrogé les archives : questionnaires de mise en marché; couvertures des ouvrages; correspondance de Lewis avec des correcteurs, des bibliographes et des critiques; coupures de journaux recensant la réception. La présente étude de cas apporte une contribution importante à la compréhension du rôle qu’ont pu jouer, au milieu du xxe siècle, les maisons spécialisées dans l’édition savante en matière de production des savoirs dans le monde anglophone.
Appendices
Bibliography
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Primary Sources
The archives consulted while researching this article include: Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, the papers of Bonamy Dobrée held at the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, the papers of E. K. Chambers – particularly his correspondence with Kenneth Sisam, and Helen Gardner’s papers at St Hilda’s College and Merton College, Oxford. We have also consulted with the research librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand about Daniel Davin’s papers – especially his correspondence with Kenneth Sisam, Basil Dowling and Bonamy Dobrée. Of particular interest are two letters which Lewis wrote to Dobrée as one of the general editors of the OHEL series, which are held at the Brotherton Library, but not included in the third volume of Lewis’s collected letters. References to specific items and their location within these archives are provided in the endnotes.
Secondary Sources