Even if it doesn't make financial sense

Reviving Revivals

Wow—your responses to last week’s request to tell me about yourselves were so wonderful—and fascinating! Thanks to all who responded in the comments and to me personally.

I have tried to shy away from making this newsletter into marketing for Belt books per se, but many of you commented you wanted more of that, so I am indulging myself this week.

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A few years ago, we decided to start a series of reprints. We wanted to put out gorgeous new editions of overlooked books that were in the public domain, and had a Rust Belt or Midwest theme. For me, this was the greatest indulgence: I did a PhD in American literature from 1880—1920, so to be able to research possible reissues, commission introductions, and design beautiful wrappers seemed an impossible gift. But yet I was somehow in the position of just saying: sure, let’s do it.

We published ni…