Abstract

Book reviewing has a long history, and the mid-nineteenth century saw the addition of book reviews designed to support Christmas book sales. A surge in books published for Christmas entertainment and gift-giving not only affected the labor required to produce these books but also pressured book reviewers to find inventive ways to critique the piles of books that besieged them each December. With the warm feelings of Christmas came a gentler reviewing period, but books that received kindly reviews in late December could easily garner harsher criticism in the new year.

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