H-90v. Teaching the History of the Book - Advance Reading List

• Preliminary Advices

  In this RBS course, we will be leading a series of discussions about pedagogical approaches to teaching the history of the book on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The reading below will constitute the texts for the discussions. Building on these conversations, each student will have an opportunity to prepare and present to the group an individual session on some topic in the history of the book as a practicum. This will allow everyone to engineer his/her own “experiment” before the term begins.

  The reading is a small sample from a huge literature now available on any and every aspect of the history of the book. We have selected individual titles either because they have achieved the status of a “classic” in the field or because they are provocative and provide an interesting perspective. If we have overlooked your “favorite,” please do let us know.

• Required Reading

  Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of the Book?” Daedalus, 111:3 (Summer, 1982). Frequently reprinted.

  Howard, Nicole. The Book: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

  Howsam, Leslie. Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.

  McKenzie, D. F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. London: British Library, 1986. Pay particular attention to titular essay.

  Tanselle, G. Thomas. Bibliographical Analysis: A Historical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  Williams, William Proctor and Craig S. Abbot, An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009.

   

• Recommended Reading

  Hawkins, Ann R., ed. Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism and Book History. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2006.

  Additional pedagogical web-essays at Pickering & Chatto.

  McKenzie, D. F. Making Meaning: “Printers of the Mind” and Other Essays, edited by Peter D. McDonald and Michael F. Suarez, S.J. Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

  McGann, Jerome J. The Textual Condition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Read “The Socialization of the Text” pp. 69–83.

  McGann, Jerome J. Black Riders: The Visible Language of Modernism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

  Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery. An Introduction to Book History. New York & London: Routledge, 2005. This text is best as a review than an introduction since it presupposes a knowledge of the conversation.

  Shillingsburg, Peter. From Gutenberg to Google. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

  Hume, Robert. “Aims and Uses of Textual Scholarship.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 99:2 (June 2005): 197–230.

  Cowley, Des, and Clare Williamson. The World of the Book. Victoria, Australia: The Miengunyah Press, 2010.

  Kelemen, Erick. Textual Editing and Criticism. New York & London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009.

• Recommended Browsing as interest, time and money allows; Or, a list for the over-achiever

  Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972; corrected edition, 1974; several subsequent British and American reprintings with minor corrections; paperback edition published in 1995 by Oak Knoll Press.

  Greetham, D. C. Textual Scholarship. New York & London: Garland, 1994.

  de Hamel, Christopher. The Book: A History of the Bible. London & New York: Phaidon, 2001.

  Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Ezell, Margaret. Social Authorship and the Advent of Print. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Read pp. 1–40.

  Jackson, H. J. Marginalia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

  Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. New York: Penguin, 1997.

  Olmert, Michael. The Smithsonian Book of Books. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1992.

  Sher, Richard B. The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006.

  Woudhuysen, Henry. Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Read the Introduction, pp. 1–21.

  See also:

  Journals to browse, according to interest: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America; Book History (an annual published by SHARP); Publishing History; The Library.

  Any of the various national histories of the book, such as the History of the Book in England, History of the Book in America, or L’Histoire de l’edition francaise.