Literary Advice, British Fiction 1880-1910 and the Birth of the Creative Writing Industry
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
Literary Advice, British Fiction 1880-1910 and the Birth of the Creative Writing Industry
By (Author) Dr Paul Vlitos
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Bloomsbury Academic
19th February 2026
United Kingdom
Classifications
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900
Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
Physical Properties
Hardback
256
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
Description
An exploration into the development of the literary advice industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this book examines popular author guides of the period, offering insight into the origins of writing advice, and reconstructing debates about the relationship between the author and their public, literary value and the teaching (and teachability) of creative writing.
Making clear connections with the advice offered to aspiring writers today, Paul Vlitos historicizes the fields of creative writing and literary criticism, tracing to their origins some of the enduring platitudes of pedagogy whilst studying the matrix of attitudes and circumstances out of which they emerged. Works explored include George Baintons The Art of Authorship (1890), Arnold Bennetts How to Become an Author (1903), Walter Besants The Pen and the Book (1899), E.H. Lacon Watsons Hints to Young Authors (1902), Percy Russells The Literary Manual; or, A Complete Guide to Authorship (1886) and The Authors Manual (1890) and Leopold Wagners How to Publish a Book (1898).
In addition, Vlitos places the periods writing advice in dialogue with contemporary, fictional depictions of the literary life, demonstrating how authors each presented their own versions of what it might mean to be a writer in a changing economic and cultural landscape. Featuring such fiction as the short stories of Henry James, George Gissings New Grub Street, George Pastons A Writer of Books, Edna Lyalls Derrick Vaughan, Novelist, Marie Corellis The Sorrows of Satan, Mary Cholmondeleys Red Pottage, H. Rider Haggards Mr Meesons Will, George Merediths Diana of the Crossways and Sarah Grands The Beth Book, this book offers striking new readings of texts both canonical and neglected, bestselling and consciously high-brow, to shed light on how the idea of an author, in its modern sense, is articulated.
Author Bio
Paul Vlitos is programme director for the English Literature with Creative Writing undergraduate programme at the University of Surrey, UK. He is the author of Eating and Identity in Postcolonial Fiction (2018) and two novels. He is also co-author of two forthcoming novels under the pseudonym Ellery Lloyd.
