Until the middle of the nineteenth century, commonplacing was a habitual practice of middle-class US households, undertaken by children and adults alike to record notable quotations and to cultivate their literary taste. Though it declined in popularity with the rise of the scrapbook in the midcentury, commonplacing was for centuries a standard feature of both educational curricula and domestic literacy, with generations of students instructed in the intellectual and moral benefits of selecting and copying passages culled from reading. Commonplace books offer a wealth of vital information about US literary culture, for they not only illuminate eighteenthand nineteenth-century reading practices by allowing us to discern what US readers valued in various genres, but they also help to document what middle-class and well-to-do Americans were reading. In showing that many Americans were attentively reading and excerpting the works of such less remembered figures as Caroline Sheridan Norton, Charles A. Sprague, and Edward Young, these books may even be said to reveal an alternative canon of nineteenth-century national reading preferences. In addition, commonplace books also affirm the particular status of the quotation, which was so prized that readers dedicated much of their time to the selection and transcription of select passages. According to Barbara Benedict, these handpicked excerpts revealed both the reader’s taste in as well as his or her eye for a well-chosen phrase or a keen observation, and as

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小说常识：引文、碑文和文学权威

直到 19 世纪中叶，平庸是美国中产阶级家庭的一种习惯做法，儿童和成人都这样做，以记录著名的引文并培养他们的文学品味。尽管随着本世纪中叶剪贴簿的兴起，它的受欢迎程度有所下降，但几个世纪以来，平庸一直是教育课程和家庭识字的标准特征，几代学生都接受了从阅读中挑选和复制段落的知识和道德益处。普通书籍提供了大量关于美国文学文化的重要信息，因为它们不仅通过让我们了解美国读者在各种体裁中重视什么来阐明 18 世纪和 19 世纪的阅读实践，而且还有助于记录哪些中产阶级和富有的人——美国人正在阅读待办事项。在表明许多美国人正在专心阅读和摘录卡罗琳·谢里登·诺顿、查尔斯·A·斯普拉格和爱德华·杨等鲜为人知的人物的作品时，这些书甚至可以说是揭示了 19 世纪国民阅读偏好的另一种经典。此外，普通书籍也肯定了引文的特殊地位，引文非常珍贵，以至于读者将大部分时间都花在了精选段落的选择和转录上。据芭芭拉·本尼迪克特 (Barbara Benedict) 说，这些精心挑选的摘录既揭示了读者对精心挑选的短语或敏锐观察的品味，也揭示了他或她的眼光，并且作为 甚至可以说这些书揭示了 19 世纪国民阅读偏好的另一种经典。此外，普通书籍也肯定了引文的特殊地位，引文非常珍贵，以至于读者将大部分时间都花在了精选段落的选择和转录上。据芭芭拉·本尼迪克特 (Barbara Benedict) 说，这些精心挑选的摘录既揭示了读者对精心挑选的短语或敏锐观察的品味，也揭示了他或她的眼光，并且作为 甚至可以说这些书揭示了 19 世纪国民阅读偏好的另一种经典。此外，普通书籍也肯定了引文的特殊地位，引文非常珍贵，以至于读者将大部分时间都花在了精选段落的选择和转录上。据芭芭拉·本尼迪克特 (Barbara Benedict) 说，这些精心挑选的摘录既揭示了读者对精心挑选的短语或敏锐观察的品味，也揭示了他或她的眼光，并且作为