Before about 1840, there was little prestige attached to the writing of novels, and most English novelists were women. By the turn of the twentieth century, ""men of letters"" acclaimed novels as a form of great literature, and most critically successful novelists were men. In the book, sociologist Gaye Tuchman examines how men succeeded in redefining a form of culture and in invading a white-collar occupation previously practiced mostly by women.Tuchman documents how men gradually supplanted women as novelists once novel-writing was perceived as potentially profitable, in part becau