Performing Authorship in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals - Powell, Manushag N.

This book embraces periodicals across the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century to argue that this mode of writing, packed with humor and verve, originates the figure of the mass market author as a literary character. The author posits that, at the same time, periodicals harbor inescapable doubts as to whether such a character is sustainable.