Literature since at least the eignteenth century has been first of all a commodity, and most books would not have been written save that printers need something to print, publishers something to publish, booksellers something to sell, reviewers something to review. Your favorite publisher knew how many books he would issue this spring long before he knew which books they would be: like all businesses, the literary business must regard as its first priority the maintenance of a certain volume of output.
Hence the conspiracy to agree that every year there are several dozen important books, allotted an arbitrary lion’s share of attention; that at any
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