The Business of Abridgments in Eighteenth-Century Britain and America

Date: 19 July 2017
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: West Dining Room (LM-621), James Madison Building, Library of Congress
Lecturer: Michael F. Suarez, S.J. - Executive Director, Rare Book School

In this highly illustrated lecture, Rare Book School Executive Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. examines the surprising prevalence of abridgments in eighteenth-century Anglo-American publishing. Seeking to understand why the reprint trade is commonly the business of publishing abridgments, Suarez considers how intellectual property, economics, and provincial markets affect the activities of booksellers and the cultures of reading. Examining nineteenth- and twentieth-century collecting practices and the historiography of book history and bibliography, Suarez explains how the ubiquity of abridgments has largely escaped our notice until now.

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