Abstract
Romance fiction is dominated by a single publisher, Harlequin Mills and Boon, which publishes roughly half of all romantic fiction worldwide, selling over four books a second (Harlequin Public Relations Office 2012). The line-up is divided into different categories, sequentially numbered imprints that emphasize a different aspect or brand of romance, such as ‘Medical’ for romance in the health industry, ‘Intrigue’ for romance with an element of suspense, and ‘Nocturne’ for romance with a supernatural twist. Each category publishes anywhere from two to eight titles a month—thousands of novels a year in total (Harlequin Public Relations Office 2011). Harlequin has been in business for over 60 years, producing a monumental back-catalogue that cannot easily be characterized, so critical opinion has diverged, describing the company variously as a savvy mercantile player (Grescoe 1997), regressive manipulator of socio-sexual norms (Modleski 1982), or faithful reproducer of women’s desires (Krentz 1992). However, the size of its publication list—with over 110 titles every month worldwide—renders this body of work impervious to more traditional forms of literary analysis.
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© 2014 Jack Elliott
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Elliott, J. (2014). Patterns and Trends in Harlequin Category Romances. In: Arthur, P.L., Bode, K. (eds) Advancing Digital Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137337016_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137337016_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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