“Who Can Estimate the Value of a Book!”: Buying and Owning Books in Antebellum Domestic Fiction

• Main Author: Johanna McElwee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Association for American Studies 2017-08-01
• Series: European Journal of American Studies
• Subjects: Eliza Leslie; Catharine Maria Sedgwick; Susan Warner; antebellum consumerism; domestic fiction; domesticity
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12015

This paper explores the role of books in American antebellum domestic fiction. Written primarily for middle-class readers, domestic fiction offers advice on how to create an ideal home and in these ideal homes the presence of books is necessary. In an era plagued by a volatile national economy, monetary assets proved an unstable basis for class affiliation. Domestic fiction, however, presents the ownership of books as an alternative foundation for class status. As a result, rather than being based on economic resources, which might lose value overnight, thus causing a plunge on the social ladder, in these tales, middle-class status transcends economic status as it becomes synonymous with the ownership and appreciation of books and the personal qualities books were expected to foster.