A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public

This book explodes two notions that are commonplace in cultural histories of the nineteenth century: first, that the spread of literature was a simple force for the democratization of taste, and second, that there was a body of nineteenth century literature that reflected `a nation of readers'. Zboray shows that the output of the press was so diverse and the public so indiscriminate in what it would read that these conclusions must be reassessed.