Author: Laurie Lacey This volume offers a compilation of folklore material gathered from Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, including data relating to traditional work patterns, education, values, beliefs, and songs.

Author: Sarah Wadsworth A vital feature of American culture in the nineteenth century was the growing awareness that the literary marketplace consisted not of a single, unified, relatively homogeneous reading public but rather of many disparate, overlapping reading communities differentiated by interests, class, and level of education as well as by gender and stage of life. Tracing the segmentation of the literary marketplace in nineteenth-century America, this book analyzes the implications of the subdivided literary field for readers, writers, and literature itself. With sections focusing on segmentation by age, gender, and cultural status, In the Company of Books analyzes the ways authors and publishers carved up the field of literary production into a multitude of distinct submarkets, differentiated their products, and targeted specific groups of readers in order to guide their book-buying decisions. Combining innovative approaches to canonical authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and Henry James with engaging investigations into the careers of many lesser-known literary figures, Sarah Wadsworth reveals how American writers responded toand contributed tothis diverse, and diversified, market. In the Company of Books contends that specialized editorial and marketing tactics, in concert with the narrative strategies of authors and the reading practices of the book-buying public, transformed the literary landscape, leading to new roles for the book in American culture, the innovation of literary genres, and new relationships between books and readers. Both an exploration of a fragmented print culture through the lens of nineteenth-century American literature and an analysis of nineteenth-century American literature from the perspective of this subdivided marketplace, this wide-ranging study offers fresh insight into the impact of market forces on the development of American literature.

The trading selling and buying of personal transport has changed little over the past one hundred years Whether horse trading in the early twentieth century or car buying today haggling over prices has been the common practice of buyers and sellers alike Horse Trading in the Age of Cars offers a fascinating study of the process of buying an automobile in a historical and gendered context Steven M Gelber convincingly demonstrates that the combative and frequently dishonest culture of the showroom floor is a historical artifact whose origins lie in the history of horse trading Bartering and bargaining were the norm in this predominantly male transaction with both buyers and sellers staking their reputations and pride on their ability to negotiate the better deal Gelber comments on this pointofsale behavior and what it reveals about American men Gelbers highly readable and lively prose makes clear how this unique economic ritual survived into the industrial twentieth century in the process adding a colorful and interesting chapter to the history of the automobile

Author: Jerome Klinkowitz Kurt Vonnegut's death in 2007 marked the passing of a major force in American life and letters. Jerome Klinkowitz, one of the earliest and most prolific authorities on Vonnegut, examines the long dialogue between the author and American culturea conversation that produced fourteen novels and hundreds of short stories and essays. Kurt Vonnegut's America integrates discussion of the fiction, essays, and lectures with personal exchanges and biographical sketches to map the complex symbiotic relationship between Vonnegut's work and the cultural context from which it emergedand which it in turn helped shape. Following an introduction characterizing Vonnegut as Klinkowitz came to know him over the course of their friendship, this study charts the impact of Vonnegut on American society and of that society on Vonnegut for more than a half-century to illustrate how each informed the other. Among his artistic peers, Vonnegut was uniquely gifted at anticipating and articulating the changing course of American culture. Kurt Vonnegut's America shows us that Vonnegut achieved greatness by passing his own testopening the eyes of his audience to help them better understand their roles and possibilities in the common culture they both shared and crafted.