American nights entertainment

About the book

Grant Overton introduces books and authors through personality, anecdote, and discussion of literary work. The volume was produced with the participation of four publishing houses, a fact that helps explain its welcoming, promotional energy as well as its selection. It is not a disinterested canon or a collection of fictional night-time tales, despite the title's playful suggestion. Readers encounter a snapshot of literary culture in 1923, when public interest in writers' lives was itself a subject for comment. The book can be enjoyed as a map of contemporary reputations, including differences between lasting recognition and immediate prominence. Its most useful questions concern mediation: how does an engaging account of an author encourage a particular reading of a book, and what does it leave unexplored?

• Literary reputation
• Publishing
• Writers and readers

Why read it

For a lively snapshot of the people and promotional culture through which books reached early-twentieth-century readers.

English literary profiles by Grant Overton · 1923