The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America

Two Centuries of American life. Here is a feast of nostalgia and information, of commercial lore and creative scruples, this remarkable study provides a full and flavorsome panorama of mass culture in America. There has never been a book like this-a comprehensive history of American literature and entertainment for mass consumption: theater, fiction (including westerns, detective novels and science fiction), the pulps, comic books and comic strips, popular music, radio and television, and movies. We see the early days of Tin Pan Alley, the writing factories of Street & Smith and other big newsstand publishers, the suspense serial in its many guises, the histories of the great comic strip characters, popular poetry, the heyday of radio melodrama, and much else. Plots and character touches are delineated with relish and memorable anecdotes, and overall there emerges a unique picture of our nation’s popular taste and creative genius. Out of Print. Condition: Fine. Light edge wear on the dustcover and a date written in ink one the front endpaper.