Henry Holt a-spinning in his grave: Literary agenting yesterday and today

The role of the literary agent and the reception granted agents by publishers have changed markedly over the course of the twentieth century. Henry Holt’s views of agents, written in the first decade of the century, help define the status and activities of agents at that time. These are compared with the role of agents today, using archival sources, the book trade literature, and interviews. Thomas L. Bonn, review editor of this journal, is a librarian, Library at State University College at Cortland. He is the author ofUnder Cover: An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks andHeavy Traffic and High Culture: The New American Library as Literary Gatekeeper. He is working on a study of American literary agents.     

That vision thing.

The 1991 Janet Doe lecturer describes the vision held by the founders of the Medical Library Association of medical information being readily accessible to health professionals no matter how far they were located from major medical centers, and traces the pursuit of this vision to current outreach activities.     

Toward a Programmatic Pragmatism: A Response to Naoko Saito

Naoko Saito has made a good case for emphasising the 'tragic' dimension within Dewey's pragmatism. My response suggests ways in which Saito has not gone far enough. She does not adequately move beyond 'procedural pragmatism' to a 'programmatic pragmatism' which offers substantive articulations about the human good. In addition, her emphasis on 'Emersonian perfectionism' is misguided. Both the language of 'perfectionism' and the figure of Emerson are unsuitable for the project she intends. Speaking more concretely of a 'tragic–comic meliorism' allied to the novelist Hawthorne, it is suggested, provides a more fruitful path.