Pernicious Trash: Reconsidering the Popular Novel with Mandylion Press and Rachel Syme

“Come, if she reads, that is something. Really solid books, no doubt: surely not novels—the pernicious trash that is published now-a-days! You do not mean novels, Mrs. Adams? For an occupation!” — H.D. Everett, One or Two 

New Yorker staff writer Rachel Syme joins the cofounders of Mandylion Press, Madeline Porsella and Mabel Capability Taylor, to discuss the deep history of the popular novel. Taking as its launch pad Mandylion’s unique catalog of forgotten favorites from the long nineteenth century, the speakers will consider how beloved novels—often written and read by women—tend to fall into obscurity, while books without the same reach are canonized by the intellectual elite. Mandylion’s project is to retrieve such lost treasures, such as Elsie Venner and One or Two, from the dustbin of history. The press’s success reveals the enduring pleasure and poignancy of stories that were once considered disposable. Rachel Syme invites the perspective of contemporary criticism into this conversation, demonstrating that the tendency to underestimate popular fiction persists into the present day. 

Registration is encouraged. 

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Rachel Syme is a writer, reporter, and cultural critic. As a New Yorker staff writer, she covers style, Hollywood, and the arts. Her past work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, Elle, Vogue, and on NPR. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she writes her letters on a big walnut desk that looks out over a garden.

Mandylion Press unearths lost literary gems written by women & weirdos in the (very) long nineteenth century. Founded by Madeline Porsella and Mabel Capability Taylor, Mandylion resurrects special stories, pairs them with contemporary introductions and compendiums of period imagery, and offers readers totally cute books of historic merit. Mandylion also hosts a podcast called 1-800-1800. 

Madeline Porsella, cofounder and editor of Mandylion Press, is pursuing a PhD in art history at Yale University. 

Mabel Capability Taylor, cofounder and editor of Mandylion Press, works in the Capital Projects department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.