Literary Patronage in England, 16501800 [Paperback]

The first comprehensive study of the system of literary patronage in early modern England.Before the development of a full-blown literary 'market' in which an author might hope to make an independent living, books were brought to readers with considerable assistance from patronage. Dustin Griffin offers the first comprehensive study of the system of literary patronage in early modern England. Combining the perspectives of literary, social, and political history, he lays out the workings of the system and shows how authors wrote within it, manipulating it to their advantage or resisting the claims of patrons by advancing counter-claims of their own.Before the development of a full-blown literary 'market' in which an author might hope to make an independent living, books were brought to readers with considerable assistance from patronage. Dustin Griffin offers the first comprehensive study of the system of literary patronage in early modern England. Combining the perspectives of literary, social, and political history, he lays out the workings of the system and shows how authors wrote within it, manipulating it to their advantage or resisting the claims of patrons by advancing counter-claims of their own.Before the development of a full-blown literary market in which an author might hope to make an independent living, books were brought to readers with considerable assistance from patronage. Dustin Griffin offers the first comprehensive study of the system of literary patronage in early modern England. Combining the perspectives of literary, social, and political history, he lays out the workings of the system and shows how authors wrote within it, manipulating it to their advantage or resisting the claims of patrons by advancing counterclaims of their own.Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. The cultural economics of literary patronage; 3. The politics of patronage; 4. John Dryden; 5. Jonathan Swift; 6. Alexander Pope; 7. Edward Young and Richard Savage; 8. Mary Lelƒ–