| For the People, by the People?: Eugene Sue's Les Mysteres de Paris - A Hypothesis in the Sociology of Literature Contributor(s): Prendergast, Christopher (Author) |
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ISBN: 1900755890 ISBN-13: 9781900755894 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $75.95 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2003 Annotation: Along with Alexandre Dumas "pere, Eugene Sue (1804-57) was the most successful popular French novelist of the first half of the nineteenth century. The present study engages with a problematic (emerging forms of popular literature), centered on a particular case (Sue's most famous novel, "Les Mysteres de Paris), and is underpinned by a specific hypothesis: the claim first advanced by the social historian Louis Chevalier that "Les Mysteres de Paris, through pressure of Sue's reader-correspondents as he wrote and published the novel in serial form, was a collective production ('written for the people by the people'). Prendergast opens lines of inquiry, identifies blockages, entertains speculations and poses questions to illuminate a range of larger issues in the sociology of literature and the history of the book. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Books & Reading - Literary Criticism | European - French |
| Dewey: 843.7 |
| LCCN: 2004445179 |
| Series: Research Monographs in French Studies |
| Physical Information: 0.49" H x 5.38" W x 8.58" (0.54 lbs) 144 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Eugene Sue (1804-57), like his contemporary Alexandre Dumas pere, was one of the most successful writers of his time. Les Mysteres de Paris, the novel for which he is most remembered, became a publishing sensation. In its serial form, it took the public by storm - readers fought for copies of the next instalment - and in book form its print-run reached an unprecedented 60,000. Christopher Prendergast's study engages with the problematic of emerging forms of popular literature on the basis of a specific hypothesis: that Les Mysteres de Paris, written and published in serial form, was, through the pressure of Sue's reader-correspondents (many of them barely literate), a collective production, 'written by the people for the people'. Prendergast examines the phenomenon of popular literature and reader response in the nineteenth century to illuminate larger issues in the sociology of literature. |