Romance Fiction and American Culture

Taylor & Francis

Bringing together scholars from the humanities, social sciences and publishing, this collection adds historical depth and specificity to the American cultural history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular romance fiction. The contributors examine the genre's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century contexts, the relationships between love and race, the emergence of LGBTQ romance, the dynamic tension between romance fiction and second-wave feminism, and the practical and rhetorical aspects of the romance industry. > Since the 1970s, romance novels have surpassed all other genres in terms of popularity in the United States, accounting for half of all mass market paperbacks sold and driving the digital publishing revolution. Romance Fiction and American Culture brings together scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and publishing to explore American romance fiction from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. Essays on interracial, inspirational, and LGBTQ r.