Barnbiblioteket Saga och den unga läsaren

Retoriska manuskriptpraktiker på en barnboksredaktion

Abstract

Barnbiblioteket Saga and the Young Reader: The Rhetoric of Editing in Children’s Literature Publishing

In this article, I explore the archive of the publishing company Svensk läraretidnings förlag and the children’s book series Barnbiblioteket Saga (The Children’s Library Saga). Instead of considering the published Saga texts as the products of individual creativity, this article emphasizes the editorial process as an aesthetic-pedagogical function and literary production as an editorial art form. The article addresses two central questions: What editorial practices can be identified in the preserved manuscripts, and what principles guiding the editors can be discerned from these practices? In connection with this, I present two models to describe the publisher’s manuscript practices, which can be employed to gain a broader understanding of the importance of editorial manuscript work in publishing. The archival material shows that the editorial process was continually influenced by a rhetorical audience. To a significant extent, the various stages of manuscript handling were driven by pedagogical concerns and rooted in how children’s needs, interests, and resources were perceived. However, the editorial work was also strongly motivated by aesthetic considerations, which were closely intertwined with the pedagogical aspects.