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Author Chen, Amy, 1984- author.

Title Placing papers : the American literary archives market / Amy Hildreth Chen
Published Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 183 pages)
Series Studies in print culture and the history of the book
Contents Introduction: Outside the Literary Collections Market -- Inside the Literary Collections Market -- Brand: Authors and Families -- Profit: Agents and Dealers -- Competition: Directors and Curators -- Provenance: Archivists and Digital Archivists -- Access: Scholars and the Public -- Conclusion: The Matthew Effect
Summary "The sale of authors' papers to archives has become big news, with collections from James Baldwin and Arthur Miller fetching record-breaking sums in recent years. Amy Hildreth Chen offers the history of how this multimillion dollar business developed from the mid-twentieth century onward and considers what impact authors, literary executors, agents, and rare book dealers have had on this burgeoning economy. The market for contemporary authors' archives began when research libraries needed to cheaply provide primary sources for the swelling number of students and faculty following World War II. Demand soon grew, and while writers and their families found new opportunities to make money, so too did book dealers and literary agents with the foresight to pivot their businesses to serve living authors. Public interest surrounding celebrity writers had exploded by the late twentieth century, and as Placing Papers illustrates, even the best funded institutions were forced to contend with the facts that acquiring contemporary literary archives had become cost prohibitive and increasingly competitive"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Libraries -- Special collections -- American literature.
Archives -- United States -- Administration -- History
Archives -- Acquisitions -- United States -- History
Authors, American -- Archives
Authors, American -- Archives
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
Authors, American
Archives -- Acquisitions
Archives -- Administration
Authors, American -- Archives
United States
Genre/Form Electronic books
Archives
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2023701219
ISBN 9781613767313
1613767315
9781613767306
1613767307