Women Poets, Male Publishers: Myth vs. Market in Post-1960s Britain (New Directions in Book History)

Synopsis

We are often told that the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s led to the rediscovery of forgotten women writers. Without feminist presses such as Virago, these women would have sunk into obscurity. Thanks to Carmen Callil and other trailblazing feminist publishers, a canon of women’s literature emerged, and living writers managed to survive and sometimes thrive in a literary marketplace that had so far been dominated by men. Although obstacles remained, the story is one of the triumphs over a misogynistic publishing industry—a sector that had once sought to erase women writers of the past, marginalise living authors, and close the doors to any future legacy. There are two problems with this oft-repeated story. First, it focuses mainly on fiction rather than poetry (founded in 1973, Virago did not start publishing poetry until the early 1980s). Second, it neglects the major role that conservative male publishers played in (re)discovering women poets in post-1960s Britain. With the growing influence of the Women’s Liberation movement, these publishers realised that there was a growing market for poetry by women. At the same time, the Arts Council of Great Britain started pushing for more diversity, nudging its “clients” to make more room for women and ethnic minorities. Drawing on extensive archival work and oral history interviews, this open access book pushes the boundaries of a scholarship that has focused mainly on women’s poetry in relation to women’s presses. Archival documents show the influence of the Arts Council and the market in pushing conservative publishers towards more diversity. This evolution has had long-term consequences on the canon of women’s poetry, a canon that was largely shaped by conservative publishing houses rather than radical feminist presses.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9783031841545

Related ISBNs:

9783031841538

Publisher:

Springer Nature Switzerland

Date of Addition:

03/17/25

Copyrighted By:

The Editor

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Poetry, Literature and Fiction, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Language Arts, Communication

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.