The Book Advice Column as Evidence of Reception

This article considers the extent to which reading advice columns and fan mail can be considered evidence of reception by looking Emily Newell Blair’s columns in Good Housekeeping magazine in the 1920s and 1930s. It suggests that while Blair’s columns end up telling us more about the relative range of possible receptions than about any individual moments of reception, they are evidence of a popular embrace of ecumenical middlebrow aesthetics.