Revolution and the Word: Chapters 1 & 2

"Of approximately sixty-five American novelists who published before 1820, less than a third were named on the title pages of their books; slightly over a third appeared either anonymously or pseudonymously but are known today (often because the veil of anonymity was only tenuously employed, with the author's actual name revealed in the advertisements for the specific book or in a subsequent publication by the same individual-- as was the case for Brockden Brown, Susanna Rowson, and Royall Tyler). The remaining authors (and the largest single group) were and remain anonymous." (92)

Okay, so I get that at the time, novel writing was considered especially racy and improper, but I still have such a hard time with this aspect of early American literature. I just don't get it. It's one thing to accept that the novel is subversive and racy, but it seems completely ridiculous that someone would write & publish a novel, which was unlikely to produce any amount of money, without attaching some kind of ownership to the work. I mean, it is work, and I can't imagine that novel writing was an incredibly leisurely activity-- I mean physically as well as emotionally --especially when it's considered to be so absolutely deviant.

And here's the other thing-- so say you have written a novel in 1790, and you're worried that your reputation will forever be marred by this atrocious activity. My question to YOU, Mr. 1790, is what exactly did everyone think you were up to when you were holed up writing this novel? I mean, seriously? How conspicuous could you possibly be? Wouldn't the people in your life, your immediate family and close friends-- wouldn't they notice that you were spending an awful lot of time with, I dunno, your quill?

What's even more baffling about this very different conception of authorship is the bizarre way that it devalues the time and effort of the writer/author. Davidson describes the role of the printer in the publication process, noting that "sometimes advertisements for books even emphasized the printer's art more than the writer's", explaining how the aesthetic appeal of the physical book was noted in advertisements (79). It seems strange that this work would be acknowledged and somewhat glorified, where the author of the text, without whom there was no novel, was more often than not never even acknowledged for their contribution to the product as it appeared in book form.