The Underestimated Importance of Minerva Press

How did one publishing house change the course of the Gothic novel and, in fact, of novels in general? And why haven’t you heard of it? This week, I’d like to give you a brief history lesson on one of England’s most influential—and yet least talked about—publishers, Minerva Press. Founded by William Lane in 1780, though it didn’t adopt the name “Minerva” until 1790, Minerva Press was the largest publisher of fiction for three decades around the turn of the 19th century. And its specialty? The Gothic novel. Minerva press churned out Gothics by the dozens, usually written by female authors. Yet few of these works ever make it into literary discourse, and the press itself is usually dismissed as a low-brow publisher of cheap nonsense. Only in recent years have scholars really started to examine the influence of this remarkable press and question whether that reputation might be undeserved.

If for nothing else, Minerva Press should be celebrated for the voice it gave to women. William Lane published more works by women than any other publisher of his time. In past posts, I’ve discussed the Female Gothic and the ways in which the genre came to be especially associated with women. Minerva Press was a large part of that. Though not the publisher of big names in the genre like Ann Radcliffe, Minerva Press provided a home for the hordes of women that followed in her footsteps—authors like Regina Maria Roche, Francis Lathom, Eleanor Sleath, Isabella Kelly, and Eliza Parsons. Though you’re unlikely to even come across these names in an English class today, books like Roche’s The Children of the Abbey were wildly popular bestsellers in their day.

In an era when women were only just beginning to be taken seriously as writers, and still with much push-back, it is notable that William Lane not only focused on publishing women, but that he took risks on new, untested debuts. Many of women published by Minerva Press were originally fans and readers with no literary clout of their own, but William Lane established a publishing model that allowed these underdogs to reach far wider audiences than would have otherwise been imaginable. Even the name, “Minerva Press,” speaks to its emphasis on women. At the time, most publishing houses were simply named after the person running them. Naming his company after the Roman goddess of war and wisdom was some rather innovative branding on William Lane’s part.

But it was one other aspect of Minerva Press that truly revolutionized the literary scene: William Lane’s lending libraries. To help his books reach a wider audience, Lane set up a chain of circulating libraries where readers of lesser means could borrow books on a subscription basis. His libraries were mainly stocked with books published by his own Minerva Press. Before libraries became widespread, books were often prohibitively expensive to all but the upper class and reading remained the purview of the elite. William Lane was at the forefront of a movement to make books accessible to a more general audience and encourage recreational reading among the working class, and especially among women.

This accessibility, of course, is part of the reason why Minerva Press, Gothic novels, and novels in general gained a reputation as being “low-brow.” Literary merit belonged exclusively to upper class men, so if these books were being read by women and the less wealthy then they could not possibly have value—or so that line of thinking goes. Gothic novels were derided as hack writing with formulaic plots that did not stimulate the intellect—many of the same stereotypes that still haunt works mass-market genre fiction today. The works of Gothic fiction published by Minerva Press came to stand for everything that people thought was wrong with the genre. You can see this play out in Jane Austen’s Gothic parody Northanger Abbey. At one point, Catherine Morland meets with her new friend Isabella to discuss their shared love of Gothic novels. Coming off as silly and girlish, they gush about their favorites and Isabella provides a list seven more books to read next. Catherine asks if they are all “horrid,” meaning horror-inducing but ironically carrying connotations of “horrible.” Of the seven Gothic novels mentioned by Isabella, six had been published by Minerva Press. These works provided the main fodder for Austen’s satire, though for many years critics assumed the titles were merely made-up, so much had their influenced been erased.

Most of the works published by Minerva Press are obscure today, but the impact it had on the landscape of literature is immeasurable. Without Minerva Press, we would not have the Gothic as a full and fleshed-out genre. Hundreds of women would not have had an outlet for their literary aspirations, and women in general would not have had the benefit of so large a publishing house catering to them, specifically, as an audience. William Lane’s circulating libraries contributed to widespread literacy across social classes and provided material for readers who later developed into writers, themselves. For nearly two centuries, the works published by this press were largely ignored and forgotten. In recent years, however, Valancourt Books, an independent American publishing house, has begun reviving and reprinting the lost Gothics of Minerva Press. Meanwhile, the next time you here an entire publisher or genre being dismissed out of hand, you may want to look more critically at these stereotypes and consider why we assign more value to certain types of books over others.

What did you think of this history lesson? Would you like more posts like this one? Had you heard of Minerva Press before? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!