Introduction of Literary Publication History in Literary Editing & Publishing

Thanks to David Gants at Florida State University for posting some of his course material, including a “Book History Timeline,” from his 2007/2011 ENG 5933: History of the Book, as it proved to be incredibly useful in my ENG 3099: Literary Editing & Publishing course at Centenary University. Yesterday, I gave a brief presentation on the history of the book in order to ask the question, where should we begin our investigation into the history of literary publications, including the focus of our course, literary magazines. I linked to Gants’s timeline on my Moodle for students to read, and, throughout the presentation, we discussed the history of writing, texts, and books in broad strokes, from cuneiform to the little magazines (The Dial, The Little Magazine, and Poetry) of the early 20th century. Students arrived in the lecture having read selections on the history of the literary magazine from Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine.