Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Nineteenth-Century Feedback...

20 June 2023: Writing advice from the nineteenth century doesn't seem that different from writing advice from 2023: "From the 1830s through the 1890s, an age of transformation in the literary marketplace, many of the advisors' themes were consistent. In tones flat, pleading, or scolding, editors urged, Do not submit poems and stories you have just dashed off....Revise carefully, advisors reiterated. Your submissions are verbose. Strike out lines, sentences, and paragraphs, especially those you think uncommonly fine" (De Jong 15). 

Chuckled a bit while reading this piece. 

Work Cited

De Jong, Mary. “‘My Dear Unknown’: Advice to Literary Aspirants in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals.” Popular Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and the Literary Marketplace, edited by Earl Yarington and Mary De Jong, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 10–34. 

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