TY  - JOUR
AB  - One of the most successful circulating libraries in 19th-century Britain was Charles Edward Mudie’s Select Library, which opened in 1842. As an important cultural institution, it satisfiedthe demand of a people that were becoming increasingly literate. For an annual subscription fee of one guinea, readers could borrow one volume at a time. The three-decker, for which Mudie got a discount of up to fifty percent of the nominal price, was his preferred publication format.
 
During the course of this article I will examine the failure of the threedecker system through the writing of contemporary author George Gissing, supported with the work of book historians. I will argue how the three-volume novel that once proved so profitable for the Select Library resulted in Mudie’s eventual business failure and that Mudie’s deliberately decided to kill the format off entirely.
 
DA  - 2020-09-03
DO  - 10.17879/satura-2019-3065
LA  - eng
M2  - 32
PY  - 2020-09-03
SN  - 2701-0201
SP  - 32-39
T2  - Satura
TI  - Mudie’s Select Library and the Three-Decker Novel – A Mutual Failure?
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6:3-satura-2019-30020
Y2  - 2026-02-13T18:09:17
ER  -