Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon Lise Jaillant Number 7 MODERNISM, MIDDLEBROW AND THE LITERARY CANON: THE MODERN LIBRARY SERIES, 1917–1955 Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace Series Editors: Kate Macdonald Ann Rea Editorial Board: Kristin Bluemel David Carter Stella Deen Christoph Ehland David Finkelstein Jaime Harker Nick Hubble Elizabeth Maslen Rebecca N. Mitchell Victoria Stewart Titles in this Series 1 Th e Business of the Novel: Economics, Aesthetics and the Case of Middlemarch Simon R. Frost 2 Fashioning the Silver Fork Novel Cheryl A. Wilson 3 Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor Erica Brown 4 John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity Kate Macdonald and Nathan Waddell (eds) 5 Women’s University Fiction, 1880–1945 Anna Bogen 6 William Clark Russell and the Victorian Nautical Novel: Gender, Genre and the Marketplace Andrew Nash Forthcoming Titles Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction: Th e Art of Female Beauty Kirby-Jane Hallum Th e Gothic Novel and the Stage: Romantic Appropriations Francesca Saggini www.pickeringchatto.com/ltpm MODERNISM, MIDDLEBROW AND THE LITERARY CANON: THE MODERN LIBRARY SERIES, 1917–1955 by Lise Jaillant PICKERING & CHATTO 2014 Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH 2252 Ridge Road, Brookfi eld, Vermont 05036-9704, USA www.pickeringchatto.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. © Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2014 © Lise Jaillant 2014 To the best of the Publisher’s knowledge every eff ort has been made to contact relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues.  Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions. british library cataloguing in publication data Jaillant, Lise, author. Modernism, middlebrow and the literary canon: the Modern Library Series, 1917–1955. – (Literary texts and the popular marketplace) 1. Publishers and publishing – New York (State) – New York – History – 20th century. 2. Series (Publications) – History – 20th century. 3. Books – Market- ing – History – 20th century. 4. Books and reading – History – 20th century. 5. Modernism (Literature) – History and criticism. I. Title II. Series 070.5’097471’0904-dc23 ISBN-13: 9781848934931 Web-PDF ISBN: 9781781444559 ePub ISBN: 9781781444641 ∞ Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by CPI Books CONTENTS Acknowledgements ix List of Figures and Tables xi Introduction: ‘Good Taste in Reading’ 1 1 H. G. Wells, Science and Sex in the Modern Library, 1917–31 19 2 ‘Th e Modern Library is Something Magnifi cent’: Sherwood Anderson and the Canon of American Literature 41 3 Blurring the Boundaries: Detective Fiction and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the Modern Library 63 4 Woolf in the Modern Library: Bridging the Gap between Professional and Common Readers 83 5 Canonical in the 1930s: Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop in the Modern Library Series 103 6 ‘If it’s Like Any Introduction You Ever Read, I’ll Eat the Jacket’: Faulkner’s Sanctuary, the Modern Library and the Literary Canon 123 Conclusion 145 Notes 151 Works Cited 181 Index 199 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Th is research, which fi nds its origins in my doctoral dissertation, has been sup- ported by a number of fellowships from the University of British Columbia, the Bibliographical Society of America, the Newberry Library, and the University at Buff alo Libraries and Humanities Institute. I also received travel grants from the Bibliographical Society of Canada, the Modernist Studies Association and the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing to present my work at conferences. I am grateful to my PhD supervisor, John Xiros Cooper, and to the members of my committee, Leslie Howsam and Ira Nadel, who have spent a lot of time advising me in various ways. Special thanks to my external examiner, James L. W. West III, for his helpful comments and encouragements. Th anks to Gordon Neavill for sharing his impressive knowledge of the Mod- ern Library with me. For introducing me to Book History, I thank my instructors in the Print Culture programme at Simon Fraser University: Michael Everton and Leith Davis. For introducing me to New Modernist studies, I am grateful to my instructors in the MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London: Joseph Brooker, Laura Salisbury and Rebecca Beasley. Finally, this research would not have been possible without the help of librarians, archivists and curators at Columbia University Library, Newberry Library, the Library of Congress, Princeton University Library and the Uni- versity at Buff alo. Earlier versions of my chapters on James Joyce and on Willa Cather have appeared in James Joyce Quarterly and Studies in the Novel. I am grateful to Sean Latham and Tim Boswell for their assistance. Jonathan Cerf and Oxford Univer- sity Press also gave me permission to reproduce copyrighted images. – ix –