Abstract/Summary

Victorian Literary Businesses is a comprehensive exploration of how business practices formed in the mid – late nineteenth century British publishing industry. Utilising theories from business and management history, this monograph asks the question why did the industry develop as it did and how did some of the world’s most iconic authors, literary agents and publishers develop during this time? Drawing on a wide range of documentary and in some cases rare archival sources, Literary Businesses brings to the foreground research about a creative industry that is often not given much attention in scholarly business research. Victorian Literary Businesses goes beyond a corporate history which traces the formation and development of a company and explores factors of entrepreneurship, marketing and strategy to bring to the foreground the different factors and conditions that allowed particular business practices to form and become institutionalised. The study focusses on the publication of mass market fiction.