SHARP News
Item Type Newsletter (Paginated)
Authors SHARP, (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing)
Citation SHARP News 2006, 15(1):1-16 SHARP News
Publisher Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
Journal SHARP News
Download date 29/09/2021 04:33:03
Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/106243 SHARP NEWS Volume 15, Number 1 Winter 2006
lishing in wartime. Jane Potter, from Oxford MODERN BOOK HISTORY Brookes, distilled an impressively lucid and HIGHAM ARCHIVE well-organised paper out of a mountain of Parallel sessions are par for the course at information on the surprisingly diverse re- Literary agencies are an often over- book history conferences these days, and the sponses of the major British publishers to looked resource for bibliographical re- Modern Book History Conference hosted the propaganda expectations of the Welling- search. It is strange that this should be so as by Oxford University on 26 November 2005 ton House Bureau during WW1, and Helen the historic place that agents have had in the was no exception, with three concurrent Smith, from York, teased out a fascinating manuscript-to-publication process is itself streams of papers. One shared the wish Asa and thought-provoking comparison between relatively well-known. Recently, Peter Briggs expressed in the third plenary of the the classic reprints series produced for the McDonald illuminated the part that Arthur day, to be in two or three places at once. American armed forces in WW2 and the Conan Doyle’s agent, A.P. Watt, played in Considering the diversity of interests repre- Gulf War. placing Conan Doyle’s early Sherlock sented, however, the organisers managed to The second session offered a three-paper Holmes stories in The Strand. Similarly, Mary group the papers intelligently. feast for Joyceans, a panel on reading com- Ann Gillies has contextualized Watt, along The program began in suitably self-scru- munities, and one on texts and history, fea- with his contemporaries in late-nineteenth tinising fashion with Helen Small’s elegant turing Mark Nixon on John Morley’s biogra- century British literary agency, J.B. Pinker meditation on the paradox posed by book phy of Gladstone, Jonathan Rose on and Curtis Brown, in terms of the estab- history’s exemplary contemporaneity and Winston’s Churchill’s serial commercial fail- lishment of the contemporary (and eventu- interdisciplinarity, on the one hand, and on ures as an author in the US, and the reading ally, of the twentieth century) literary mar- the other hand its slightly mid-Victorian autobiography of Miki Kiyoshi, a Japanese ketplace. devotion to the accumulation of individual intellectual of the interwar and war years. The David Higham Literary Agency, for- instances. Peter D. McDonald, in a second The third and final session focussed on merly Pearne, Pollinger, and Higham Ltd., keynote presentation, took up Small’s hints publishing and the literary marketplace, with has been the agency of record for some of at an exemplary status for book history papers on the Dutch, Flemish, British and the twentieth century’s most prominent Brit- among the humanities disciplines, partly ac- Estonian booktrades, a panel on current and ish poets, novelists, and essayists, among knowledging, with Jonathan Rose, its poten- future publishing, and two excellent and them Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Edith tial role as Fortinbras to the royal house of closely argued papers, one by Chris Hilliard Sitwell, and Allanah Harper. The Harry Ran- Theory, but warning against naïve hopes of (U of Sydney) on the Tillotson Syndicate, a som Center at the University of Texas at a return – by this or any other route – to the distribution agent for magazine fiction Austin holds an extensive collection of the innocent simplicity of a pre-theoretical throughout the Empire, and another by Dal- Higham Agency’s archives dating back to Elsinore. The question of ‘the literary’ in las Liddle (Augsburg College, USA) on shift- the early 1930s, and the records of corre- ing representations of journalism in mid-Vic- particular, as canvassed by the likes of ... / 2 Eagleton, Bourdieu, Blanchot and Derrida, torian literature. can hardly be wished away, and book histo- The conference as a whole was remark- able for its tight (but generous) organisation, ry’s inbuilt awareness of material and insti- CONTENTS tutional determinations does allow the so- the strength of the plenaries and of all the phistication of some of those insights to be panels I was able to attend, the international retained and even built upon. Asa Briggs, in diversity of the delegates, the vigour of the MODERN BOOK HISTORY 1 the last of the plenary talks, invoked pre- discussion, and the reliability of the heating. HIGHAM ARCHIVE 1 cisely those determinations in a wise and en- For most of these, the organiser, Kate THE SHARP EDGE 3 gaging evocation of a long and brilliant ca- Longworth of Magdalen College Oxford, THE BOOK COLLECTOR 4 reer, one crowning achievement of which will was responsible, and she has much to be PRIZES 5 be his monumental history of the House of proud of. It’s to be hoped that a publication BOOK REVIEWS 6 Longman, soon to appear. will result. BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR 12 The first of the parallel sessions offered EXHIBITION REVIEWS 12 one group of three papers on texts and im- Patrick Buckridge CALLS FOR PAPERS 13 ages, a second on particular authors and pub- Griffith University, Australia FORTHCOMING EVENTS 14 lishers, and a third (which I attended) on pub- BIBLIOGRAPHY 15 2 W INTER 2006 SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1
... / 1 spondence between the agency and its useful the still unexplored areas of the SHARP NEWS storied clients, as well as reader reports on a Higham archive might be. variety of lesser-known creators, are an in- Although only some of Dylan Thomas’s EDITOR valuable resource for literary history, cultural letters to the Higham Agency appear to be Sydney Shep, Wai-te-ata Press studies, and history-of-the-book scholarship. in the archive, it does contain many letters Victoria University of Wellington Although the archive is not completely cata- from Higham himself to Thomas, chiefly PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand logued, individual author correspondences over Thomas’s missing of deadlines, and Fax: +64-4-463-5446 are easily located, and the archive’s contents over Higham’s efforts to keep prospective E-mail: [email protected] have already proven to be essential sources publishers happy with no product to show for several scholarly works. them. More intriguing, though, is the agen- EDITORIAL ASSISTANT - 15.1 We can divine remarkable insights about cy’s small role in keeping Thomas out of Renée Maunder the creative process from material that we military service during the war years. Tho- Summer Publication Assistant might, at first, consider tangential to it. Cer- mas’s wish to avoid conscription is some- Wai-te-ata Press tainly, a great deal of what literary agents thing which several Thomas biographers, do might seem to have more to do with the Paul Ferris and Andrew Lycett among them, REVIEW EDITORS business-end of the writer’s existence than have made clear. Ferris points out that Ian Gadd, Book Reviews with the creative. However, a perusal of Higham had apparently advised Thomas to Bath Spa University College, UK some of Graham Greene’s letters to, and re- go for his military physical, one which he E-mail: [email protected] sponses from, the Higham Agency during subsequently failed (a failure which ulti- the early 1940s is remarkably illuminating, mately excluded him from service). Higham Gail Shivel, Book Reviews both from the standpoint of scholarship on wrote to Thomas, on 1 February 1940 (in a University of Miami, FL, USA Greene and for our understanding of the letter which Ferris does not make use of), in E-mail: [email protected] historical context of publishing during the reference to Thomas’s attempts to land a ci- war years. Norman Sherry, in his three vol- vilian job with the British government prior Lisa Pon, Exhibition Reviews ume biography of Greene, made extensive to his physical: “I am so sorry but there is Southern Methodist University use of the correspondence between Greene not truth in that story you have heard about Dallas, TX USA and Lawrence Pollinger from the Higham the Ministry of Labour form which you E-mail: [email protected] archive. At one point in early 1943, Greene completed, and which we turned into them. wrote to Pollinger from Freetown, West I more than sympathise with your wish not Tina Ray Murray, E-Resources Reviews Africa, where he was stationed as an intelli- to be conscripted in a few months time. Per- University of Edinburgh, SCOTLAND gence officer for MI6. Amidst his instruc- haps the war will be over by then. Let’s hope E-mail: [email protected] tions to the agency concerning paperback and pray so.” These and other pieces of cor- BIBLIOGRAPHER reprints of his earlier novels, he lashed out respondence in the Higham archive show just Robert N. Matuozzi at the complacency of his fellow British how intimate Thomas’s relationship was with Washington State University Libraries colonials: “One feels out of it in this colony his agent at a critical point in his life, and, as Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA of escapists with their huge drinking parties with the already noted correspondence of E-mail: [email protected] and their complete unconsciousness of what Greene’s, they underscore the potential that war is like. I had hoped at one time that we the agency’s archives may still hold for schol- SUBSCRIPTIONS might have been bombed, but that hope has arly projects. Barbara Brannon, SHARP faded” (154). Although much of value has already been PO Box 30 A later letter to Pollinger, after Greene drawn from the Higham archive, the fact that Wilmington, NC 28402–0030 USA had returned to Great Britain, and one also so much of the collection remains E-mail: [email protected] noted by Sherry, illustrates Greene’s extreme uncatalogued, and generally unexplored, is displeasure over the 1943 stage production an indication that there remains in it a po- of Brighton Rock. In one particularly vitupera- tentially rich source of research material SHARP News (ISSN 1073-1725) is the tive passage from the six-page hand-written awaiting the enterprising scholar. The Ran- quarterly newsletter of the Society for the letter in the agency archive, Greene excori- som Center offers over 40 fellowships for History of Authorship, Reading and Pub- ated actress Hermione Baddeley for speak- those who wish to conduct research on any lishing, Inc. Set in Adobe Garamond with ing “in a voice which sounds rather like a of its many collections. As the significance Wingdings. gargle & can obviously be heard at the back of the literary agent’s role in the lives and of the Gallery” (163). These, and other pas- creative processes of writers becomes COPY DEADLINES sages, from the original letter do more than clearer, the Higham archive in particular is 1 March, 1 June, simply illuminate the close relationship be- sure to produce even more interesting finds. 1 September, 1 December tween Greene and his agent; they display the value that artist-to-agent correspondence has Noah Mass SHARP WEB: already had for works of literary scholar- University of Texas at Austin http://sharpweb.org ship, and tantalize us with indications of how SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1 WINTER 2006 3
rather than reading” (2). Rather, Secord sug- els and poetry. The problem becomes quite THE SHARP EDGE gests that “The remarkable story of Vestiges different, however, when the issue is ‘how can be recovered through new approaches can we understand this event, or that epi- Literary Replication: to reading and communication that are revo- sode?’ rather than ‘how did contemporar- James Secord’s Victorian Sensa- lutionizing our interpretation of many as- ies experience this author, or that canon?’ pects of the past. Reading has often been seen In the same vein, many of Darnton’s explo- tion & Models of Book History as a profoundly private experience, but it is rations into the history of the book and of better understood as comprehending all the reading in eighteenth-century France could The very name of SHARP – a society for diverse ways that books and other forms of be characterized as approaches to the ques- the history of authorship, linked to that of printed works are appropriated and used. tion ‘what made the French revolution hap- publishing, connected to reading and return- Taken in this sense, a history of reading be- pen?’ Secord’s questions about the way na- ing again to writing – embeds Robert comes a study of cultural formation in ac- ture was understood in early Victorian Eng- Darnton’s image of the history of the book tion” (518). land are historians’ questions. But in formu- as a communication circuit.1 Recently I did Secord’s strategy is to follow a single work lating answers, he has drawn upon, and gen- some research on theories and models of “in all its uses and manifestations – in con- erously acknowledged, the work of bibli- book history, and discovered only a few com- versation, solitude, authorship, learned de- ographers and book historians, and repays peting models. An intriguing one appeared bate, religious controversy, civic politics, and the debt by offering a new insight into how five years ago, however, in James Secord’s the making of knowledge.” As he argues, “We to theorize the way ‘the book’ works in a Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publica- can then begin to understand the role of the given culture. tion, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Ves- printed word in forging new senses of iden- Secord offers a critique of Darnton’s tiges of the Natural History of Creation.2 tity in the industrial age … A widely read sci- theory of a ‘communication circuit,’ point- The present essay, published so long af- entific work is a good ‘cultural tracer’: it can ing out that the circuitry model puts too ter publication, is not a proper book review be followed in a greater variety of circum- much stress on feedback, and not enough but more of a ‘heads-up’ to the community stances than almost any other kind of book” on how books work outside the print culture of scholars who teach and research the his- (3). Secord characterizes his book as “an in which they are made. He proposes instead tory of the book, and particularly the his- experiment in a different kind of history,” the notion of ‘literary replication.’ This tory of reading. Many fine books have ap- which explores “the introduction of an evo- metaphor replaces Darnton’s imagery of cir- peared lately, and some of us might have lutionary account of nature into public de- culation with one of replication. Like cells, overlooked Secord’s theoretical contribu- bate in order to see what happens when a texts replicate themselves, but with variants; tion to the history of the book and print major historical episode is approached from and like organisms, books evolve from one culture. As it happens, mine is not the only the perspective of reading” (518). state to the next. Copies of books are re- response, appreciation or excerpt to appear What that episode has to say about the produced by the technology of the print- so long after publication – the New York 1840s, and also about the Darwinian moment ing press, but to examine the sequence of Review of Books finally discussed Victorian of the 1850s in Victorian culture is particu- editions is to discover that reproduction Sensation in June 2005, when the paperback larly revealing. In Secord’s words, “every act does not imply precise copying. On the con- appeared, under the title ‘He almost of reading is an act of forgetting … The trary, the same title often appears over sig- scooped Darwin.’ This state of affairs is pe- books that allow us to forget the most are nificantly different texts, as well as widely culiarly appropriate, since much of Secord’s accorded the authority of the classic … The diverging physical formats. Copies may be argument turns on the multiple variations in Origin is among the most pervasive remnants authorized by writer and publisher, or ‘pi- which a text can be experienced, and how of the Victorian world in our culture, yet it rated’ by others; readers may make their long some books can remain alive and con- simultaneously forces much of that world own copies for their own use; and a later troversial. into oblivion … In remembering the Origin generation’s reading will differ from that of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation we forget Vestiges”(515, 532). And in read- the author’s contemporaries. was first published in 1844, and its anony- ing Vestiges the early Victorians forgot the The notion of literary replication draws mous authorship was part of the sensation, books that came before it. upon the extensive recent work in the his- as was its discussion of evolutionary ideas Adrian Johns commented in 1994 on “the tory of science, where scholars now argue about the natural world. This was fifteen simultaneous arrival over the last generation that the norms of modern science have been years before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species of both a new history of the book and a new socially constructed.4 Earlier scholarship and part of Secord’s argument is to set the history of science,” and suggested “that a rap- had understood experimental replication as classic work in the context of its now-for- prochement might be highly beneficial to both a merely mechanical process; new studies gotten, but then sensational, predecessor. As camps.”3 Secord’s book, among others, dem- demonstrate that such replication was “an the subtitle suggests, this is an account of onstrates that the rapprochement is now well accomplishment, achieved through agree- the history of a single book. Secord makes underway. Victorian Sensation’s contribution ment that two experiments are in fact ‘the clear, however, that his aim is not to write to the theory of studies of book and print same’” (126). Secord suggests an analogy the ‘biography’ of a book, a description that culture is substantial, partly because it is between conceptualizations of scientific is more appropriate for an account, such as about a scientific work. Reading and reader- experiment and of the authorship/print- Darnton’s Business of the Enlightenment (1979), ship studies have been largely concerned ing/reading event. Like scientific replica- “centred on production and authorship with reconstituting past encounters with nov- tion, printing was formerly understood as ... / 4 4 W INTER 2006 SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1
... / 3 merely mechanical; but research in the history it from him for a nominal £100. Other of books has demonstrated that printing too THE BOOK COLLECTOR friends rallied round, notably the great was an ‘accomplishment’ – people associated American collector Paul Mellon, and the with the book trades had to agree that one journal was saved. John Hayward, crippled edition of a book was ‘the same’ as another. In 2002, The Book Collector, the only quar- with muscular dystrophy but with an iron will The reading public’s conviction that one edi- terly journal in the world equally for collec- that brought poets and book collectors to tion or reissue of a book was identical to an- tors, librarians, booksellers, and all who love him, formally assumed a responsibility that other, and carried the same authority, was an books, celebrated its 50th birthday. It sprang had always been his and ruled over The Book active accomplishment of the book trades. in 1952 from the intense (though brief) fit Collector for the next decade. Under his hand When successive editions and readings of of bibliophily of Lord Kemsley, owner of the great series began: ‘Uncollected Authors,’ Vestiges appeared in 1844 and throughout the The Sunday Times and other important news- those invaluable bibliographies of authors 1850s, there was no single consensus over papers. He had founded the Dropmore less than famous but nonetheless important; what the book meant, but instead a series of Press, the last of the great British private ‘Unfamiliar Libraries,’ stretching from then unstable and contingent agreements, especially presses, and a printing and publishing busi- Soviet Armenia to the West of Ireland and fluid since Robert Chambers’s authorial iden- ness, the Queen Anne Press, which took over even America; ‘Contemporary Collectors,’ tity was hidden for so long. a small and then failing little periodical, The in which all the great book collectors of the The lesson Secord has taken from book Book Handbook. It was given a new and more day queued up to have their riches recounted; history and bibliography is “that textual sta- handsome form, and in the spring that year and ‘Portrait of a Bibliophile,’ which did the bility, even within a single edition, has been appeared as The Book Collector. It early es- same for the great collectors of the past. difficult to achieve” (126). Vestiges, like other tablished itself in the affections of collec- Other series dealt with bookbindings and important books, was replicated throughout tors, librarians and booksellers, because, autographs. To every number Hayward its contemporary culture – in numerous vari- unlike any other journal, before or since, it added a short but authoritative account of ant editions and in lengthy excerpts embed- was devoted to the interests of all three. Its current events. ded within reviews and rebuttals. The printed subscribers grew, those in all three of its sub- At the end of 1964 another blow fell: Ian text came to the attention of readers, in the ject areas contributed to its content, and the Fleming, by now the famous creator of 007 several places where each was ready and able booksellers in particular generously sup- and very rich, died suddenly. Less than a year to absorb it, and prepared to re–‘publish’ it, ported it with advertisements. later, John Hayward, who seemed to have in conversation. The material replication of Three names adorned the mast-head of stayed alive by will-power alone, died too. the printing shop (itself a cultural process) the new journal, Ian Fleming, P.H.Muir and At the memorial service, a group of friends, was part of the background to conversations John Hayward. All three were old friends, Muir, John Carter and ‘Tim’ Munby, cor- about the book, in settings from the pub to and all in different ways involved in the new nered me against the wall of the church and the boudoir – and of lectures by authorities enterprise. Ian Fleming, not then famous for persuaded me to become the editor. Use- on both sides of the evolution question. And ‘James Bond’, was Foreign Editor of Lord less to protest that it had been a full-time this cultural replication was framed, in its turn, Kemsley’s Sunday Times, but also a book job for crippled John and that I had a full- by the printerly conventions of type and pa- collector of rare taste and discrimination, time job already, I bowed to the inevitable. per, design and marketing. ahead of others in collecting the monuments My first number was largely a memorial for By declining to give primacy to any of of human thought since 1800. Percy Muir John Hayward, at whose command, even the three elements of the communication was a famous bookseller, who had devoted from the grave, all his old friends contrib- circuit, Secord’s analysis transcends and in- his energies to re-establishing the links, bro- uted. All too soon, other worries super- corporates them all. It is contextual in the ken by the war, between the booksellers of vened. The finances of The Book Collector were fullest sense of the word, concerning the Europe, especially in Germany. John Hay- inextricably enmeshed in those of Ian ways in which books work in a culture, how ward, the adviser of Lord Kemsley and Fleming, and had to pay the very high inher- they exercise their power. many other book collectors, lived with T.S. itance tax to which it was liable. But some- Leslie Howsam Eliot, whose poetry had benefited from his how it survived and still survives, its finances, University of Windsor legendary and creative criticism, as had the then as now, just (but only just) balanced, writing of many other famous authors. These and, as I look back over nearly forty years, it 1 Robert Darnton, ‘What Is the History of Books?’ were the three who set The Book Collector on seems little short of a miracle. Dædalus 111, no. 3 (1982): 68. its way, shortly afterwards joined by a fourth, Even in 1965, when I became editor, the 2 James Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary the printer James Shand, whose Shenval Press Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of world of The Book Collector was a small one, the Natural History of Creation (Chicago: University of was in the forefront of typography. although it stretched from America to East- Chicago Press, 2000). In 1953 the journal increased in size, and ern Europe. There were still few collectors, 3 Adrian Johns, ‘History, Science, and the History of the Philip Gaskell was added to the board as few librarians interested in bibliophily, and Book: The Making of Natural Philosophy in Early editor. But only two years later a blow fell. there were not many booksellers to supply Modern England.’ Publishing History 30 (1994): 5. Lord Kemsley fell out of love with books them. I did my best to encourage and divert 4 Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the air- pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton: as rapidly as he had fallen in. He decided to them. We published the astonishing tale of Princeton University Press, 1985). Steven Shapin, A Social close down The Book Collector, and was only the survival of Thomas Mann’s scandalous History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century persuaded not to do so by the urgent inter- and suppressed short story ‘Walsungenblut.’ England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). cession of Ian Fleming, who offered to buy When the terrible flood overwhelmed Flor- SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1 WINTER 2006 5 ence and its libraries, we devoted a special book collectors, librarians, booksellers, and published in Libraries & Culture, with foot- number to it and launched the appeal for all those who simply love books. notes, spelling, and punctuation conform- funds that enabled overseas binders to join If you want to know more, do consult our ing to the latest edition of the Chicago the local campaign to clean and conserve website,
of the visual personality of individual titles ary ‘work.’ It vividly immerses us in the teem- BOOK REVIEWS or series — proves a triumph when applied ing highs and lows of eighteenth-century to an institution like Penguin. What is rarely print culture. absent from Penguin’s policy is a conviction Brewer’s study offers a range of exam- Phil Baines. Penguin by Design: A Cover Story that each cover should ‘speak’ for the indi- ples that both classify forms of imaginative 1935-2005. London: Allen Lane, Penguin vidual title as well as for its series context. expansion and also argue for a historical tra- Books, 2005. 256p., ill. ISBN 0713998393. Because of the honesty of this endeavour, jectory. Beginning with the numerous con- £15. the best of these covers still communicate tinuations of Swift’s Gulliver, he illustrates clearly and freshly decades later, and the the way eighteenth-century readers thought Here are some 600 front cover designs books are remembered as part of the cul- about literary property not as something made for Penguin Books over the past 70 tural odyssey of countless readers. proprietary, but as a kind of intellectual years, offering both a visual panorama of a It is unsurprising that this book sheds lit- commons. Far more than the author, it was great publishing imprint and a close study tle fresh light on the enigma that was Allen character – and character’s iterability – that of advances — and occasional setbacks — Lane. On the evidence, Lane was always in organized readers’ identification with their in its corporate idiom at the hands of a suc- the driving seat and has to be accounted one texts. Through discussions of the Tatler an- cession of outstanding designers. This of the most enlightened design directors and ecdote about Inkle and Yarico (a story of a plethora of covers is intelligently grouped patrons of his time. Everything bears his European selling his oriental lover into slav- into one of three sizings; to fit one, four, or imprimatur, from the first and lasting Pen- ery), which would become a veritable ‘folk nine images respectively to the page. These guin logo to the Harmondsworth headquar- epic’ (56), and the long afterlife of Sir John full-colour illustrations are handsomely ters building, from the earliest sixpenny pa- Falstaff, Brewer also illustrates how the printed and the squarish, thread-sewn paper- perbacks to the magisterial Pelican History theater and the performativity of theatrical back allows a generous fore-edge margin for of Art — and yet all personal biographies property became key principles for organ- captions and notes. It is hard to find fault of this remote figure leave our curiosity in izing readers’ responses to eighteenth-cen- with the typography except for a small large measure unsatisfied. The latest of these, tury texts. amount of text printed in ‘Penguin orange’ Jeremy Lewis’s Penguin Special: The Life and If Gulliver, Falstaff, Inkle and Yarico with sad consequences for legibility. Within Times of Allen Lane (2005) is no exception, embodied a highpoint of trafficking in char- this format the successive phases of cover but his study may be read in conjunction with acter, then Brewer’s concluding three exam- development are analysed and presented in Penguin by Design to advantage, for Lewis also ples are meant to illustrate the gradual clos- five chronological chapters. Changes in art writes about design issues in an informed ing off of character’s access to readers’ editorship and freelance sources are consid- way and shows how they fit into a wider pat- writerly expansions. In Pamela, we see how ered in relation to the wider issues of inter- tern of publishing. Richardson deftly invokes the fiction of the nal politics and growing competition from Douglas Martin fictional archive at the same time that he in- rival publishers. The evolution of cover Consultant Book Designer, Leicester creasingly argues for his proprietary access grids and logo placement, and the initiatives to this surplus of material. In Brewer’s called for by each new subject category, are words, the commons turns to the coterie. It lucidly shown and explained. was Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, however, that In the interests of a clear storyline for this David A. Brewer. The Afterlife of Character, marks a true turning point for Brewer. monograph, and of a display on the same 1726-1825. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Uni- Sterne’s construction of a club of true feel- theme held at the Victoria and Albert Mu- versity Press, 2005. x, 262p. ISBN ers stands in marked contrast with Shandy’s seum, a decision was taken to hold over the 0812238648. US$59.95. bibliographic gags that are designed to em- visual history of Puffin (the children’s book phasize the proprietary – and not the division) until its own later anniversary, and Rare among academic books, this is the shareable – nature of the individual book. this may be seen by some as a present loss. type of work that you actually tell your By the time of Walter Scott, Brewer argues, Similarly, the decision to concentrate on cov- friends and colleagues to read. Brewer’s in- the author had assumed a parental relation- ers leaves scant space to discuss and, none spired methodology is to address what he ship to his own characters, wholly extract- at all to show, examples of Penguin’s signal terms ‘imaginative expansion,’ the range of ing them from the reader’s control. The contribution to text design, production, and readers’ practices of continuing, in some Author as owner was born. the books themselves as physical entities. form or other, socially popular works of the Like other histories of reading, Brewer This is to be regretted the more since Pen- eighteenth century. The Afterlife of Character does an exemplary job of showing us the guin’s master typographers, Jan Tschichold is the latest contribution to revive the study surprising – and downright odd – range of and Hans Schmoller, were opposed to di- of ‘character’ in eighteenth-century litera- responses readers could bring to a text. But, vorce between text and cover design. ture, exemplified in the recent work of as in other histories of reading, in having But Phil Baines should not be criticized Catherine Gallagher, Deidre Lynch and Lisa the reader mediate our understanding of a for what he has expressly chosen to exclude Freeman. At the same time, Brewer’s work text, we still must read the reader. One wants or play down, for his book as we have it vin- addresses a host of book historical issues more close reading of these reader’s expan- dicates the value of the designer’s approach surrounding reading practices, the status of sions, more on how they contributed to, and to publishing history. This emergent method intellectual property, the function of the au- changed, eighteenth-century literary life. Fi- — which traces the making and reception thor, and the fluid boundaries of the liter- nally, in choosing to write not just a classifi- SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1 WINTER 2006 7 cation of practices, but also a historical nar- periodical as, in Richard Noakes’s words, the Victorian period. However, the book rative (from the commons to the propri- ‘a passive mediator, rather than an active me- openly acknowledges that it merely begins etary), Brewer has arguably overemphasized dium of science’ (93), the book seeks to con- ‘the process of sketching out the terrain’ the political and underemphasized the juridi- sider the contested emergence of scientific (34) and Science in the Nineteenth Century Peri- cal in shaping readers’ responses and authors’ writing within a diverse range of popular odical should be seen as part of the much self-constructions. He wants to suggest that periodicals and amongst a broad spectrum larger project directed by Sally Shuttleworth it was the relative peace and political stabil- of readerships. and Geoffrey Cantor, which has already pro- ity of the eighteenth century that encouraged Ranging across the nineteenth century, duced the invaluable searchable online such expansionist enterprises, and yet his from the rise of the cheap miscellany to the SciPer Index (http://www.sciper.org), as timeline almost perfectly maps onto the his- triumph of the New Journalism, the book well as the two edited essay collections Cul- tory of copyright. Why should we not sim- presents six periodical case-studies. Its au- ture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media ply ascribe this changing configuration of thors view scientific contributions as part (reviewed SHARP News 13.3) and Science reader and author to changes in the legal con- of a wider periodical text, shaped by the Serialised. Overall, Science in the Nineteenth- ceptions surrounding intellectual property? formal constraints and ideological com- Century Periodical should be commended as Such questions notwithstanding, The After- plexities of each title. This generic and a genuinely interdisciplinary book that will life of Character offers a wonderful contribu- chronological focus is complemented by enrich the knowledge of scholars of peri- tion not just to the fields of reading history three thematic essays that track scientific odical and publishing history as well as his- and the history of character, but also to the debates across periodicals, including a fas- torians of science. larger portrait of the derivative nature of cinating article on ‘baby-science’ by Sally Caroline Sumpter eighteenth-century culture. Shuttleworth. The qualitative approach Queens’ University, Belfast opens up unexpected areas of analysis, and, Andrew Piper while widely discussed periodicals such as McGill University Punch are represented, the book also makes some unpredictable selections. Macmillan’s Magazine, publisher of articles by Huxley as Russell and Corinne Earnest, Flying Leaves and well as Kingsley’s The Water Babies, might One-Sheets: Pennsylvania German Broadsides, Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Graeme seem the obvious choice for a shilling Fraktur and Their Printers. Newcastle, Del: Gooday, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth monthly. Gowan Dawson instead offers a Oak Knoll Press, 2005. 352p. ISBN and Jonathan R. Topham. Science in the Nine- useful reappraisal of the Cornhill Magazine, 1584561459 US$95 teenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine revealing that a periodical widely assumed of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- to avoid scientific, as well as political con- This handsomely-produced and well-il- sity Press, 2004. 329p. ill. ISBN 0521836379. troversy, slipped in references to Darwin- lustrated sampling of German-American £45/US$75 ism where we might least expect to find broadsides, broad-sheets, and fraktur is an them: in fiction and comic fantasy. illuminating and fresh introduction to the In 1827, the cheap miscellany the Mirror It is intriguing to discover that Darwin broad areas of study and collecting. of Literature promised both ‘fact and fancy’ was shaped by reading mainstream periodi- For more than a hundred years collec- (Topham, 65). Over thirty years later, cals: his family bought the Penny and Satur- tors and scholars have appreciated the Thackeray’s Cornhill Magazine strove to pro- day Magazines, and he took note of scien- charms and attractions of German-Ameri- vide ‘facts as well as fiction.’ Science in the tific discussions in the Cornhill and Punch. Re- can (mostly Pennsylvanian) fraktur. Speci- Nineteenth-Century Periodical reveals, however, covering anonymous readers, of course, is mens of hand drawn and illuminated birth fact, fiction and fancy were often blurred in a far more difficult process, and Science in and baptism certificates (Geburts und the hybrid writings that constituted popular the Nineteenth-Century Periodical faces a diffi- Taufschein) and writing samples (Vorschrift) periodical science. As Graeme Gooday culty familiar to all periodical scholarship. are among the most treasured and beautiful demonstrates, late Victorian articles on elec- Substantial discussion of implied audiences of early American folk art. tricity were also shaped by utopian, social- can displace the problem of real readers, Henry C. Mercer’s The Survival of the Me- ist, and Christian tenets, and participated in whose class, gender and interpretative strat- dieval Art of Illuminative Writing Among the the ‘futurist’ discourse of scientific romance. egies are always more difficult to pin down. Pennsylvania Germans (1897) stimulated the This illuminating, collaboratively- While this issue is acknowledged here first wave of fraktur discovery. Henry S. authored, volume shows that nineteenth cen- through some engagement with correspond- Borneman’s Pennsylvania German Illuminated tury science and literature could be mutu- ence columns, it would have been helpful Manuscripts, a Classification of Fraktur-Schriften ally transformative. While such an approach to see some of these pages reproduced, or and an Inquiry into Their History and Art (1937) has become increasingly familiar in the wake these discussions of textually mediated sent collectors scavaging through the Penn- of Gillian Beer’s Darwin’s Plots, Science in the readers given a little more space. sylvania ‘Dutch’ land and gave new empha- Nineteenth-Century Periodical also offers some- Perhaps inevitably, some readers will re- sis to library collections. Donald A. Shelley, thing different: an analysis of the role of pub- gret the absence of particular periodical in The Fraktur-Writings or Illuminated Manu- lishing context in the shaping of science, and genres: the lack of explicit focus on peri- scripts of the Pennsylvania Germans (1961), ex- of science in the construction of periodical odicals aimed at female readers, for exam- amined European antecedents and showed identities. Challenging conceptions of the ple, or on penny or radical periodicals from how fraktur stems from a medieval manu- ... / 8 8 W INTER 2006 SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1
... / 7 script tradition ‘transplanted, adapted and Richard Garnett. Rupert Hart-Davis Limited: had to read, and often edit, punctuate and rejuvenated’ in America. His art-historical A Brief History with a Checklist of Publications. even rewrite’ (48). Depicting the company approach was the first to seriously include London and New Castle: British Library and as a collective enterprise is the aim of printed and partially printed forms. By the Oak Knoll Press, 2004. 96p ill. ISBN Garnett’s volume, and he does go some way time The Pennsylvania German Fraktur of the 0712348921 (UK) 1584561467 (USA). towards deconstructing the cult of individu- Free Library of Philadelphia (1976) was cata- £12.95/US$24.95. alism within publishing. Nonetheless, his ac- logued by Frederick S. Weiser & Howell J. count also demonstrates the importance of Heaney, it became clear that regional print- During its seventeen years of publishing, personal connections in the running of the ers and their clientele were important factors Rupert Hart-Davis Limited produced a company, both in terms of acquisitions and when considering the scope of fraktur func- wide-ranging list of 637 books. Richard keeping the company financially solvent. tion and production. Garnett’s volume stresses the publisher’s Financial failure was to be the downfall The tools to begin this particular phase of eclecticism, aptly illustrated by a repro- of Rupert Hart-Davis Limited. Established the study were greatly sharpened and ex- duction of Osbert Lancaster’s cartoon of in the period of post-WW2 austerity, the panded with the publication, in six volumes, the Soho Square premises: a series of authors company began its life contending with a of Dr. Klaus Stopp’s The Printed Birth and Bap- troop towards the publisher, clutching un- meagre paper ration and struggling to print tismal Certificates of the German Americans (1997- der their arms manuscripts labelled Mem- enough copies to make bestsellers. The com- 2001). Prepared with the help of the authors oirs, Novel, Economics, Travel, Drama and pany’s desire not to let production standards of Flying Leaves, Stopp’s work provided a Biography. Garnett was himself an employee fall meant, as Hart-Davis claimed (but comprehensive technical and typographic and shareholder in the firm, and it was his Garnett is unable to substantiate due to ar- analysis of more than 1,300 printed variants father David Garnett who initially suggested chival gaps), that “there was only one year of fraktur birth and baptismal certificates. Dr. the joint venture to Hart-Davis. As such, the when his firm did not lose money” (43). Stopp’s influence is obvious in Flying Leaves. brief history, originally published in The Book David Garnett eventually squabbled over Russ and Corinne Earnest have a distin- Collector, has the charm, and occasional fail- money with Hart-Davis, but his son re- guished history of scholarship and publica- ings, of an insider account. mained with the company until its eventual tion in the genealogical and fraktur fields. In From its first publications in 1947, takeover, first by Heinemann, then Harcourt recent years they became especially aware of Rupert Hart-Davis Limited published schol- Brace and eventually, Granada. the vast (and mostly ephemeral) production arly, and now standard, editions of works This is a slim volume, but one which of- of the German-American press beyond pam- by, among others, Henry James, Robert fers a different perspective on the company phlets and bound books. Printing in both Louis Stevenson and Oscar Wilde, the books to that delivered by Hart-Davis’s memoir. German fraktur (black letter) and English, upon which the reputation of the company It also provides a comprehensive bibliogra- these intrepid early printers produced tens of rested. And yet the list was much broader, phy, which lingers on production details, but thousands of documents and other ephem- as Garnett is at pains to point out. It included unfortunately – other than versions of the era. Fragile from the day they were made, and the Mariners Library (tales of high seas ad- company’s fox colophon – does not illus- generally neglected after a short passage of ventures), the Countryman Library (a series trate them. Nonetheless, it is a useful addi- time, many thousands have been lost forever. of manuals for the smallholder), and the tion to the history of post-war British pub- This clearly presented sampling of 130 bestselling memoir Elephant Bill. This diver- lishing and, in providing an alternative view broadsides, broadsheets, and one-sheets, most sity, in Garnett’s analysis, reflected the dif- of one company, goes some way towards from private collections, is arranged within fering tastes of its two founders, and, loyal providing a more rounded picture of liter- major themes and ordered by approximate to his father and his own work editing many ary production. dates of printing. Each piece has a full page of the books that Hart-Davis apparently did Claire Squires illustration, many in color. not touch, Garnett is eager to emphasise the Oxford Brookes University Just a brief glimpse at the thematic organi- financial and literary importance of such ti- zation alone will convince many SHARPists tles to the publisher. that there is much here worthy of further study. Garnett’s history undoubtedly has a mis- Perhaps this book will inspire a wide variety sion to highlight the contribution of others of research, including (eventually) an illus- to Hart-Davis’s eponymous company. While trated bibliographic catalogue raisonné‚ of all fully acknowledging Hart-Davis’s personal Samuel Johnson. A Dictionary of the English known German-American broadsides. and professional acuity and energy, Garnett Language: London, 1755. Oakland: Octavo also emphasises that though he “did an enor- Editions, 2005. DVD or CD-ROM. ISBN mous amount of work, he did not do every- 1591100690. US$50 Ronald Lieberman thing” (31). Indeed, Garnett doubts that The Family Album, ABAA, Hart-Davis read many of the company’s This last year’s 250th anniversary of the Kinzers, Pennsylvania books, including those of the money-spin- publication of Johnson’s Dictionary of the ning Gerald Durrell. This is in direct con- English Language has been marked by the ap- trast to Hart-Davis’s assertion in his memoir pearance of several Dictionary-related pub- Halfway to Heaven (1998) that in one period lications, including an affordable new dig- during the 1950s ‘we published over a hun- ital facsimile of the first edition folio Dic- dred and twenty-four books, all of which I tionary produced by Octavo Editions. SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1 WINTER 2006 9
The Octavo edition features a copy of revision of his work, but the first edition languages between 1568–1573). In 1876 the the 1755 Dictionary rendered complete from alone is sufficient for users primarily inter- printing house and all its contents were given cover to cover, its pages presented ested in having ready and affordable access by the family to the city of Antwerp. Since uncropped and in full colour. The 1000+ to Johnson’s Dictionary. The inclusion in the then, both the living quarters and the print- images are contained in 2 CD-ROMs or a Octavo edition of the Plan and the Diction- ing offices have been open to the public – single DVD and can be viewed in Acrobat ary’s prefatory material, however, and the the only museum of its kind worldwide. The Reader 5.0 (and above) on the Mac, Win- much superior quality of the digital facsimi- museum’s holdings constitute the world’s dows or UNIX platforms. The images are les are an improvement over the Cambridge richest collections of typeface specimens and displayed as facing pages in normal view and edition. Octavo Editions also offers a contain many unique samples. They include can be magnified up to 200% in the CD- US$1,750 ‘Facsimile Research Edition’ of the typefaces cut by Garamont, Granjon, Van den ROM format or 300% on the DVD. The Dictionary consisting of higher resolution Keere, Briot, Van Dyck, Kis, Fournier, image quality is superb such that the chain .jpeg files, but I can see no advantage rela- Rosart, Gillé, Didot and many other mas- lines in the paper are visible. Unlike other tive to the price, particularly as the image ters from the fifteenth to the nineteenth cen- Octavo editions, which apparently feature quality of the .pdfs is already excellent. As a tury. For the unacquainted reader these names texts that can be fully searched, only the head- tool for research the Cambridge edition is open up a convenient path to information words are searchable in the Dictionary; using to be preferred, but for viewing and print- usually only found in the dry technical litera- the search function in Acrobat Reader 6.0 ing good quality images from the Dictionary ture on the history of typography. and above, users can locate specific words and as a visual teaching aid, this reasonably- This first detailed catalogue of the Muse- and read the definitions in the text, but the priced Octavo edition can be recommended. um’s specimens reports the styles and sizes definitions themselves, the illustrative quo- of the typefaces shown in the book, describes tations and the Dictionary’s prefatory mate- Catherine Dille the paper structures and stocks, notes rela- rial cannot be searched. London tions with other specimens in the collection In addition to the images from the Dic- and elsewhere, and provides references to lit- tionary, the Octavo edition also includes three erature on many of the individual typefaces. contextual essays and a digital facsimile of Prefatory notes on the founders and printers Johnson’s 34-page Plan of a Dictionary of the who issued the specimens include chronolo- English Language (1747). The general intro- John A. Lane, Early Type Specimens in the gies of the foundries and information on the duction by Eric Korn, while entertaining, is Plantin-Moretus Museum, with a preface by origins of their materials, sometimes supple- misleading in its suggestion that Johnson Hendrik D. L. Vervliet. New Castle, DE & mented with information about the history drew his examples from a ‘startlingly pow- London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Li- of the firms and the genealogy of the found- erful database in his head,’ rather than clari- brary, 2004. 352p. ill. ISBN 1584561394 (US); ers. Nearly all of the nineteen specimens, il- fying how he carefully collected his 0712348816 (UK) US$95/£60 lustrated in their original size, appear here c.110,000 illustrative quotations from hun- for the first time. Extensive indexes make this dreds of books. Ian Jackson’s essays, one on This meticulously researched book is a book a powerful reference tool for typeface the Dictionary’s paired letters (I/J and U/V) genuine compendium of information for specimen enthusiasts, serious bibliographers and another on the history and context of those who investigate the data behind the and printing historians. Further, it contains Johnson’s Plan of a Dictionary, are well-re- familiar surface of printed books. Early Type fifteen illustrations and four facsimile speci- searched and informative. The inclusion of Specimens deals specifically with those books men sheets folded and inserted into the in- information on the binding, collation and printed in the Low Countries and France side back cover, whose printing is, regretta- provenance of this particular copy of the from the sixteenth century. As H.D.L. bly, of rather poor quality. The bright and first edition — which belonged to Richard Vervliet explains in the compact preface, clear visual makeup of the large format Warren, Johnson’s physician — evidences an since the advent of printing, typeface speci- book, however, does enhance the overall im- attention to bibliographical detail that is ex- mens have been considered ephemera, even pression. ceptional among electronic editions. trivia, and therefore were seldom collected One minor criticism: browsing the cata- For those who already own the CD-ROM by librarians or bibliophiles. Nevertheless logues of some larger libraries one notices version of the Dictionary edited by Anne they contain indispensable information in- that titles from such distant fields as biol- McDermott (CUP, 1996), the Octavo edi- dicating estimated places of origin and dates ogy, chemistry and astronomy also begin tion’s very limited searching capability com- of specific typefaces as well as other typo- with the same words, that is, ‘Early Type pares poorly to its fully-searchable predeces- graphical elements. Specimens’ – would it not have been wiser sor; furthermore, the Octavo edition con- The specimens described in this book to replace ‘Type’ with its older relative tains only the first edition of the Dictionary, come from the library of the Plantin-Moretus ‘Typeface,’ a less ambiguous term? None- rather than both the first and 1773 fourth Museum – the historical printing office and theless, all in all this volume is surely a ‘must- editions, which can be compared simultane- publishing house of the dynasty of have’ for anyone interested in historical ty- ously on the screen on the Cambridge CD- Christopher Plantin (1520–1589), who pography. ROM. Indeed, from a scholarly perspective, founded his publishing and printing house Ittai Joseph Tamari it might have been wished that Octavo had ‘The Golden Compasses’ in Antwerp in Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich instead chosen to reproduce the fourth edi- 1555. One of Plantin’s highest achievements tion, which reflects Johnson’s most extensive was the famous Biblia Polyglotta (printed in five 10 W INTER 2006 SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1
Samantha Matthews. Poetical Remains: Poets’ mated remains, the repeated exhumation of thor of his images” (11), how a signature can Graves, Bodies and Books in the Nineteenth Cen- Burns’s bones and the subjection of his skull appear and what it might mean. How did tury. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. to a phrenological examination, and Keats’s artist and engraver collaborate? Who is the x, 310p. ill. ISBN 019925463X. £50. own imaging of himself as a book, whose author of an engraved image? Is it the artist second edition might only be made ‘in sheets who first sketched or painted or sculpted the Poetical remains are complex things. In – and cold press,’ and it will be apparent that figure, or is it the craftsman who transferred an established tradition of posthumous pub- Poetical Remains makes for a compulsive (if the image to copper plate? lication, they mark the passing of a literary at times uneasily visceral) read. In five provocative chapters – ‘Framing life. Such works, which claim a completeness This is not, however, a flippant or popu- Marcantonio Raimondi’s Prints,’ ‘Aldus or closure that has been challenged by list book. Its scholarship is of the highest Manutius’s Venice,’ ‘Raphael’s Signature,’ Foucault’s ‘What is an Author?’ among other standard and though singular analysis of ‘Raphael’s Graphic Intelligence,’ and critical works, are invariably problematic. conventional published poetic texts form ‘Vasari’s Marcantonio’ – Pon highlights sev- What, a reader might ask, do such memori- but a comparatively small part of the work’s eral cruxes relating to the authorship of Ital- als achieve? They commemorate a literary project, an equally detailed reading of those ian Renaissance prints. Marcantonio, her- presence, admittedly, but they do not always other monuments of death – from the body alded as “the most outstanding printmaker supplement that which is already in the pub- itself, to the elegiac inscription on the tomb of the early Cinquecento” (15), receives, lic domain. At times they may well, by a proc- and the sometimes involuntary gathering of along with printmaking, special attention. ess of editing and selection, distort and re- literary lions in Poets’ Corner – distinguishes (The final chapter addresses Vasari’s unique, strict that heritage, overwriting the influence its consistent and coherent narrative. The but biased, biography of this engraver.) of earlier, and apparently more ephemeral, achievement of Poetical Remains is to reveal Copying techniques, such as spolvero (pin- texts. This debate, certainly, informs the close interaction of these manifold forms pricked designs pounced with charcoal dust Matthews’ lively and wide-ranging study of of memorialisation and commemoration. to produce copies on an underlying sheet) Romantic and Romantic-influenced poets From a consciousness of impending disso- and calco (stylus tracing), are explained and active from the late-eighteenth century to the lution, to the witnessed or imagined death- illustrated, all within the rich context of the last quarter of the nineteenth. bed, to interment, through exhumation and Renaissance obsession with the role of Poetical Remains, however, is a work that re-interment, to commemoration on head- imitatio in creating new works of literature pays unusual and laudable attention not stone, in statuary, by published illustration or art. merely to these printed remnants but also or reissued (and allegedly definitive) oeuvre, The chapter on the Venice of Aldus to the potential textuality of the body – tastefully embellished with a portrait of the should prove of particular interest to tradi- viewed, disposed of and written about – and poet, or of the poet’s last resting place, the tional scholars of the history of printing. It to the graves and memorials which also tes- deceased is caught up in a shroud-like tissue outlines, for example, the differences be- tify to a presence physically beyond the of ritual, replication and reputation. tween a Renaissance privilege — “a favor, world of the reader, but seemingly commu- Matthews, admirably, shows us the shroud, bestowed by a governmental authority on nicating after death as text, as image or as but permits us a tantalising glimpse beneath any individual it felt to be worthy of dis- reputation. Corpse and corpus have their its distorting surface. tinction … often neither the author of a text role to play in this cultural process of William Hughes nor the inventor of an image” (32) — and memory and imaging, and the society of Bath Spa University modern notions of copyright. It discusses dead poets visualised by Matthews is distin- the variety of Italian terms used for a pub- guished by some suitably Victorian death- lisher, who might present himself as a beds (Tennyson’s demise is particularly note- Lisa Pon. Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio stampatore (printer), a mercante di disegni (print worthy), by the conflict of elegaic verse with Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance dealer), or even a libraio (bookseller) (48-52). memorial sculpture (Mary Tighe, embodied Print. New Haven and London: Yale Univer- Sometimes the publisher was indicated “by within Felicia Hemans’s ‘The Grave of a sity Press, 2004. viii, 216p. ill. ISBN having an individual’s name preceded by any Poetess’), by interments in pastoral sublim- 0300096801. US$55/£40 of a number of prepositions — per, ad ity (Wordsworth in Grasmere), ecclesiasti- instantia de — in the colophon, or even only cal pomp (Browning and Tennyson at West- Many scholars – including specialists in by the presence of his device in the book” minster Abbey) or in exile (Browning, again, the history of authorship, reading, and pub- (49). Such fluidity presumably parallels the with, at various times Keats, Shelley and lishing – think and write of ‘the history of changing nature of the Renaissance publisher Byron), and finally by some rather spectacu- printing’ primarily in terms of the history in Italy and also accounts “for the relative lar exhumations. These last embrace not of book printing. Lisa Pon’s lavishly illus- neglect of the publisher in the scholarly lit- merely the obvious, though sensitively han- trated study serves as a reminder that the erature” (49). dled, interference with the body of Eliza- field also encompasses the printing of prints, Pon masterfully details why modern no- beth Siddal and its viscid intimacy to many of which include texts and all of which tions of plagiarism simply do not apply to Rossetti’s resurrected verse, but also the invite readings of their iconography. While Italian Renaissance art. For example, compelling narrative of how European bu- reviewing the complex question of how art- “Marcantonio’s engravings copying Dürer’s reaucracy affected the remains of more than ists shared images in different media, Pon woodcuts,” including the latter’s celebrated one dead British poet in exile. Add to this offers frequent insights into early sixteenth- monogram, “was not so much a plagiarist’s the removal of Shelley’s heart from his cre- century Italian notions of “the artist as au- blunder, but … was a publisher’s acknowl- SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1 WINTER 2006 11 edgment of a model that was in any case not Russo defines humanism as a complex of protected against copying in Venice” (62). ‘the autonomy of the individual, the library EDITORS’ REPLY Similarly, we are cautioned that the meaning of world culture and the arts, and an effort of Latin terms well-known to today’s print to translate the import of our studies into We were gratified by Gillian Wright’s en- collectors — such as invenit, sculpsit, and the moral world through teaching and other thusiastic review of Paula McDowell’s edi- excudit — did not enjoy standardized mean- civic actions.’ In our postmodern society, tion, Elinor James, in The Early Modern Eng- ings until the seventeenth century. By way of humanism is challenged by what he calls ‘the lishwoman, the facsimile series we co-edit for contrast, “in the sixteenth century, many dif- great forgetting.’ Russo worries that the past Ashgate Press. We concur that “McDowell’s ferent terms and formulae were used, and is quickly disappearing ‘without a struggle.’ labours … are remarkable and impressive” the form and meaning of each signature was He analyses several ‘signs of the times’ in the and that they make James’s “substantial writ- not always fully fixed, but could change from American context: the steady, deep decline ten output visible to a contemporary schol- print to print” (77). of the humanities in universities since the arly readership for the first time” (SHARP As the initial word in the subtitle of this 1960s, of literacy (especially literary reading News 14.4, 12). Some additional ‘behind-the- handsomely printed volume suggests, the and writing skills), of foreign language study, scenes’ production information might be of author adduces various notions of ‘copying’ and of the arts of memory. He laments the interest to SHARPists. Because Elinor James and in the process historicizes and blurring of the distinction between high and contains over 100 short texts (more than 90 problematizes the Renaissance concept of low culture, and condemns the attraction of of which are by James), we varied the series imitation in new and stimulating ways. Fur- students to an eternal present and of schol- format slightly. As with all EMEW volumes, thermore, digitally enhanced and superim- ars to contemporary cultural criticism. He a textual note is provided immediately be- posed images clearly document the range observes that literary reading and writing fore each reproduced text containing what and types of copying that transpired. The skills are falling for students educated in an your reviewer correctly identifies as “essen- volume also benefits from extensive and eru- online environment, while visual argument tial textual information such as library dite notes which, like the book itself, are a and technical writing skills are rising. shelfmarks, measurements and ESTC num- pleasure to read. Russo thinks that it is futile to resist the bers” as well as lists of blotted or other- pernicious impact of technology, and hu- wise illegible words. It does not presume to Madison U. Sowell manists must instead resign themselves to a provide the sort of emendation provided Brigham Young University lonely quest for spiritually regenerating ways in, for example, critical editions. The change to face the desolation surrounding them. from series format in Elinor James that our This restrictive range of choices aligns Russo headnote referred to and that your reviewer more with hard determinists, who regard mentioned was the elimination of what we John Paul Russo, The Future Without a Past: technology as a substantive force permeat- normally refer to as an STC / Wing block The Humanities in a Technological Society. Co- ing every aspect of our lives, than with the at the beginning of the references section. lumbia and London: University of Missouri ‘soft approach to technological determin- That is because it was clear to us that a list Press, 2005. x, 313p. ISBN 0826215866. ism’ that assumes a higher level of choice and of over 100 numbers would convey noth- US$39.95. resistance in the face of the advances of tech- ing to readers, even combined with short nological change. titles, since James’s titles are almost identi- From the opening pages of his new book, Russo presents his arguments with con- cal to one another in many cases. For clari- John Paul Russo establishes the ‘technologi- siderable scholarly range – including many ty’s sake, we also had modern-font page cal world’ as his primary concern. For him, useful footnotes and quotations – and depth numbers printed at the foot of the pages technology is not this or that machine, or of conviction. However, the genesis of that of text, corresponding to the table of con- machine type, but ‘the entire organized and conviction is not revealed. While Russo is tents. And to avoid tedium and to develop interdependent ensemble dictating the unremitting in his condemnation, he does lit- context, we also allowed the introductory technicization of everyday life, from poli- tle to show why technology is in itself de- note to the volume to take the form of a tics, economics, and bureaucratic adminis- structive of the humanities. An undercurrent discussion of the texts as a group, with their tration to the media, advertising, fast food, of a religious or spiritual bias throughout titles highlighted in bold, rather than a seria- transportation, and tourism.’ As an educa- Russo’s criticism of contemporary culture tim discussion. We have done the same in tor, he observes firsthand the impact of surfaces more explicitly in a chapter on the several other volumes, such as Randall Mar- technological change on students born since fiction of Don DeLillo, an American of Ital- tin’s recently released Women and Murder con- the 1980s. According to him, the ‘greater ian descent. Russo’s treatment is an applica- taining over 40 texts. As the reviewer notes, 1980s’ marked the start of our ‘technologi- tion of his critique of technology in an analy- facsimile volumes, like those in EMEW, pro- cal age’ with its ‘astonishing advances in com- sis of DeLillo’s fictional world. vide “something of the form and import” munications technologies’ and the insinua- of the originals. Those not familiar with the tion of the personal computer into every- Diana Kichuk series might be interested in learning that day life since then. Technology’s increasing University of Saskatchewan Library EMEW volumes also reproduce significant penetration into modern life results in a de- variants of the texts, usually in appendices. humanizing ‘technical mentality’ that threat- ens to transform mankind into a combina- Betty S. Travitsky & Anne Lake Prescott tion of human and machine – a cyborg. Ashgate Press 12 W INTER 2006 SHARP NEWS VOL. 15, NO. 1
of treatments based on practical experience A single scribe copied all of the text except BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR and observation. for a small section at the end of the verso. One of the charms of this exhibit is that While the earlier Breasted translation in- it contains many items that were meant to Are you keen to contribute to the review- cludes a transliteration of the papyrus from be used as part of the rhythms of daily life: ing activities of SHARP News? Our fearless the hieratic script in which it is written to kohl pots and tubes for the application of and faithful Ian Gadd’s term expires in March standard hieroglyphics, as well as elaborate eye paints used to repel the parasites that commentaries on the text itself, Allen’s trans- 2006, so we need a book reviews editor to cause river blindness; various libation ves- lation is notable for its ability to convey sub- cover Europe and the world sans the Ameri- sels; a baby’s feeding cup; containers for cas. For further information, please contact tleties in the meaning of a text that follows a breast milk; and jars for the storage of
... / 13 Proposals for individual papers or for America & the rest of the world; Screen- activism; Protest and Print Culture: pam- complete sessions (up to three papers and a ings, readings, exhibitions & performances phlets, manifestoes, plays, the underground moderator) should include a 250-word ab- of new creative & documentary works. press, literature, posters, graphic novels, and stract and a one-page C.V. for each pre- We anticipate presentations which em- comix; Popular Culture and the Media Mas- senter. If possible, submissions should be brace a wide range of approaches and meth- sage: cross-referential/interdisciplinary in- made via email. The deadline for submis- odologies: from media economics and policy vestigations into film, music, television, ad- sions is 30 January 2006. Notifications of studies to textual analyses and new cinematic vertising, fashion, and pop-art; Political Ide- acceptance will be made by early March. works. We are particularly keen to welcome ologies: Marxism, Maoism, anarchism, the For information, contact: James P. Danky, presentations whose focus is on the EU’s new Frankfurt School , Situationism, internation- Director, Center for the History of Print and prospective member states and their early alism, anti-colonialism, liberalism, the roots Culture in Modern America, State Histori- experiences of EU membership. An interna- of contemporary conservatism; Theoretical cal Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, tional selection of papers will be included in Explorations: the rise and fall of Marxism, Madison, WI, 53706 (Ph: 608-264-6598; Fax: the conference proceedings. the universal vs. the local intellectual, post- 608-264-6520;
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Jean Paul Gourévitch, Hetzel: le bon genie P.N. Bazanov et al, Izdatel’stva i izdatel’skie Peter Morton, The Busiest Man in England: des livres. Paris, France: Le serpent à plumes, organizatsii russkoi emigratsii 1917-2003 gg.: Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875-1900. 2005. entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik. Saint New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Germany Petersburg, Russia: Izd-vo “Forma T”, 2005. Franz J. Potter, The History of Gothic Pub- Wolfgang Adam and Markus Fauser, Stephen Lovell and Birgit Menzell, Read- lishing, 1800-1835: Exhuming the Trade. Geselligkeit und Bibliothek: Lesekultur im 18. ing for Entertainment in Contemporary Russia:Post- Basingstoke, England and New York, NY: Jahrhundert. Göttingen, Germany: Wallstein, Soviet Popular Literature in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 2005. Munich, Germany: Sagner, 2005. United States John Dieter Brinks, ed., The Book as a Work Switzerland Vicki Anderson, The Dime Novel in Chil- of Art: The Cranach Press of Count Harry Jean François Gilmont, John Calvin and the dren’s Literature. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Kessler. Laubach, Germany: Triton, 2005. Printed Book. Kirksville, MO: Truman State Co., 2005. Rainer Gerlach, Die Bedeutung des University Press, 2005. David Castronovo, Beyond the Gray Flannel Suhrkamp Verlags für das Werk von Peter Weiss. Ukraine Suit: Books from the 1950s that Made American St. Ingbert, Germany: Röhrig, 2005. M. S. Tymoshyk, Vydavnychyi biznes: Culture. London, England: Continuum, 2004. Daniel Göske, Poets and Great Audiences: pohliad zhurnalista, vydavtsia, vchenoho. Kiev, Brittany A. Daley and Stephen J. Gertz, amerikanische Dichtung in Anthologien, 1745- Ukraine: Nasha kul’tura i nauka, 2005. Sin-a-Rama: Sleaze Paperbacks of the Sixties. Los 1950. Frankfurt, Germany: Lang, 2005. United Kingdom Angeles, CA: Feral House, 2005. Iraq Phil Baines, Penguin By Design: A Cover Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger, By Its Shashi Tharoor, Bookless in Baghdad: Re- Story, 1935-2005. London, England and New Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design. New flections on Writing and Writers. New York, NY: York, NY: Allen Lane, 2005. York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, Arcade Publishing, 2005. Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading Material 2005. Ireland in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Donald E. Howard, The Role of Reading Raymond Gillespie and Andrew Literacy. Cambridge, England and New York, in Nine Famous Lives. Jefferson, NC: Hadfield, eds., The Irish Book in English, 1550- NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. McFarland & Co., 2005. 1800. Oxford, England and New York, NY: Jennie Erdal, Ghosting: A Double Life. New Daniel W. Pfaff, No Ordinary Joe: A Life Oxford University Press, 2005. York, NY: Doubleday, 2005. of Joseph Pulitzer III. Columbia, MO: Univer- Italy Jody Greene, The Trouble with Ownership: sity of Missouri Press, 2005. Angela Nuovo and Christian Coppens, I Literary Property and Authorial Liability in Eng- Giolito e la stampa: nell’Italia del XVI secolo. land, 1660-1730. Philadelphia, PA: Univer- Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 2005. sity of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Corrections and supplements to SHARP bibliogra- phy, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn 2005): Russia Daniel Hack, The Material Interests of the Rustem Akhtiamovich Aigistov, K.M. Victorian Novel. Charlottesville, VA: Univer- David Finkelstein, Introduction to Book History is co- Sukhorukov, and I.P. Tkach, Sovremennoe sity of Virginia Press, 2005. authored by Alistair McCleery. sostoianie moskovskogo knigoizdatel’skogo dela. Tom Maschler, Publisher. London, Eng- Henry Hitchings, Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary: The Extraordi- Moscow, Russia: Rossiiskaia knizhnaia land, Picador, 2005. nary Story of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. (American edition). palata, 2005. Gideon Reuveni, Reading Germany: Literature and Consumer Culture. (Not yet published.) Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing P.O. Box 30 FIRST CLASS Wilmington NC 28402-0030 USA US POSTAGE Address Services Requested PAID PERMIT #1040 LEESBURG, FL
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