Abstract
What is literary journalism – is it literature or journalism, or is it a bit of both? In his insightful book Literary Journalism in British and American Prose: An Historical Overview, Doug Underwood explains that there does not seem to be a commonly agreed definition of the term. It has been used to denote ‘narrative and discursive nonfiction, book reviewing and story-telling forms of journalistic writing, and journalism by important novelists and fiction writers’ (p. 8). Underwood himself uses it to describe both discursive and narrative journalism, including ‘hybrid forms of semi-factual writing that have been judged to be closer to fiction than journalism by at least some portion of writers, critics, and scholars’ (p. 8). The book is split into Preface, Introduction, seven substantive chapters and Epilogue. Chapter 1, ‘Journalists in the Vanguard: Reviewers, Essayists and Storytellers’, discusses the link between contemporary forms of literary journalism and their historical antecedents, in particular 18th century British practitioners. Chapter 2, ‘The “Great” 19th Century British Journalists and the Foundations of Literary Journalism’, focuses on the ‘“golden age” of discursive journalism in mid-18th to late-19th century Britain’ (p. 21). Chapter 3, ‘American Literary Journalism: Borrowings and Distinctions’, explores the development of American literary journalism from the colonial years to the 19th century. Chapter 4, ‘Women, Diversity and the Struggle to Expand the Literary Audience’, pays close attention to the role of literary journalism as a tool for advancing ‘the social and political causes of – women minorities, gays and lesbians, and others historically marginalized by class, economics, ethnicity, and/or sexual identity from playing a role in the “public sphere” of publishing and political life’ (p. 22). Chapter 5, ‘The Ascendance of the Novelist and the Accommodation of the Professional Critic’, outlines the ‘ascendance of the modern fictional novel’ and how this process is linked to the evolution of literary journalism. Chapter 6, ‘Industrialized Journalism and the Modernist Response’, discusses the ‘history of journalism as a product of both refined circles of literary elites and the commercial marketplace’ (p. 22). Chapter 7, ‘The Evolution of the Person of Letters and the Rise of the University Scholar’, ‘traces the movement of literary criticism – long the domain of the literary journalist writing for marketplace periodicals – into the expanding academic institutions of the later 19th and 20th centuries’ (p. 22). All in all, the book offers a fascinating historical overview of literary journalism and would be of interest to both students and scholars of journalism.