Happily Rarer After: The Radical Act of Taking Popular Romance Fiction Seriously

Abstract

Romance fiction represents a large part of the market share of fiction sold today and is a genre that is arguably as old as “fiction” itself. While detective fiction, science fiction, and other genres have, since the mid-20th century, come to be taken seriously by collectors and libraries, romance fiction remains on the margins, often mocked and derided as “trashy” or disposable. At the same time, its practitioners and readers remain largely unrepresented in our cultural bastions of “The Book.” In the Romance genre, we can also see the evolution of authorship, readership, and the volatile history of the book, particularly as recent controversies about representation and inclusion have unfolded in the Romance Writers of America. Battle lines seem to have been drawn between those who see romance as a conservative, static genre and those who have fought to bring recognition to writers of color long working in the genre as well as newer voices writing romance featuring LGBTQ+ relationships, disabled characters, S/M dynamics, and a more expansive definition of what constitutes “happily ever after.” With so much at stake in such a vibrant and culturally significant genre, shouldn’t special collections librarians, archivists, booksellers, and collectors consider the radically inclusive act of studying, collecting, selling, and teaching with romance? Steve Ammidown, former Manuscripts & Outreach Archivist at Browne Popular Culture Library of Bowling Green State University, will discuss the rise of popular romance and its correlation with the rise of liberation movements based on gender, race, and sexual identity. In addition to selling billions of copies, popular romance texts since the early 70s have reflected both progressive and regressive attitudes towards race, class, and gender. Research collections based around romance novels, manuscripts, and other related materials have the potential to be invaluable, especially for those looking to understand the last quarter of the 20th century. Rebecca Romney, Bookseller and Proprietor of the Rare Book firm Type Punch Matrix, will discuss the role and power that dealers have as editorial filters of the market—and therefore a notable percentage of what ends up in institutional collections. There are always visionary exceptions to this: individuals at institutions or with great personal buying power who truly lead with their own taste. Booksellers are tastemakers, though they are rarely acknowledged as such. Finally, Rebecca Baumann, Head of Public Services at the Lilly Library of Indiana University, will discuss how romance fiction can be used to teach the history of the book. Using their teaching collection of romance novels, they will show how close examination of these books as objects, with special emphasis on paratext and evidence of readership, can model the tools of book history that students can use in a variety of ways as well as encouraging students to reimagine what “belongs” in a special collections library, resisting the idea that they themselves may not be special enough for special collections and empowering them to be collectors, tastemakers, and cultural critics.