SHARP News
Volume 17 | Number 4 Article 1
Fall 2008 Volume 17, Number 4
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SHARP NEWS Volume 17, Number 4 Autumn 2008
tuities from grateful readers. In the crowded plete with anatomically bizarre illustrations SHARP OXFORD BROOKES and quixotic reception at Blackwell’s that fol- of monstrous births and conjoined twins – lowed, where Oxford’s leading bookshop to consideration of “Is there A History of played host to a ‘library’ of SHARPists, it was the Future of the Book?” where Miha Kovac, Teaching and Text perhaps the lack of air-conditioning rather Angus Phillips and Rüdiger Wischenbart Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK than subsidies that most affected authors’ in- came to bury Kindle and celebrate the birth 23 – 27 June 2008 come from book sales. of the redefined digital package for the ex- Scotland, according to Avril Gray, Linda change of a complex body of knowledge – As a small atom, comprising approximately Fleming and David Finkelstein in “Reading a.k.a. ‘Book.’ Outside the sessions discussions 0.1% of the complex body that is SHARP, I Communities in Scotland,” is home to a mot- wandered widely on the difficulties of pro- approached my first conference at Oxford with ley crew of readers. Despite inducements, ducing haggis on a stick; the decreasing size a tinge of apprehension and a strong measure some teenagers remain resistant to the idea, of airline seats; who has the most supervi- of curiosity. I wondered whether this pres- refusing to use ‘the *** book tokens,’ while sors [four, acting as two tag-wrestling teams] sure cooker of bibliophiles would result in a Shetland Islanders – the embodiment of the and which actors would star in Book History: tasty soup, or would too many ingredients noble savage – prove highly literate, voracious The Movie [Bill Nighy is a shoo-in]. spoil the broth? Like a demented variant of and sophisticated readers. Meanwhile in the Having started with the soup, I now move minestrone, what strange ingredients would well-heeled Edinburgh suburb of to a different imagery of nourishment. At- appear in each spoonful, with their differing Morningside, the older members of the li- tending the SHARP conference was like be- flavours, nutritional values and digestibility? brary have, like spies, infiltrated and subverted ing introduced to a new family, made up of For appetisers, the workshop – Exploring library practices by developing a sophisticated wise women of the tribe and patrician elders, British Publishers’ Archives – was held at Ox- code of subtle readers’ marks to record and racy aunts and notorious uncles, raucous sib- ford University Press and offered some fun communicate their literary judgements. lings and competitive cousins. In this multi- and games for those of us who had been trav- Transgressors more hardcore than genteel tudinous mêlée, the only surety is that we all elling since the early hours of the morning. Morningside pensioners were the theme of share the same imprinted DNA, the same Guided by Bill Bell, Robert Fraser and Amy Rosalind Crone’s presentation in “Teaching inky blood. A gathering of such a clan is ex- Flanders, we played sardines in the archives; and Text: Evidence from The Reading Experi- hausting but exhilarating. Like Christmas, it identified mystery objects such as Robert Peel’s ence Database, 1450 – 1945 (RED).” Prisons in is perhaps just as well it only happens on this ‘improvements’ on his speeches for publica- the mid-nineteenth century were regarded as scale once a year. tion; sleuthed our way with some hilarity nurseries of crime and their inmates in need Shane Malhotra through reports from commercial travellers of religious education to reform their criminal Open University, UK and the codes and passwords of setting up natures, if only the prisoners would stop de- ... / 7 branches in India; and ended with a mixture stroying their bibles long enough to read them. of pass the parcel and consequences using the Using entries from RED, Katie Halsey CONTENTS OUP letter books, where distracted publish- showed a hunger for escapist reading during ers mollified anxious authors and disgrun- World War II which was sharpened by the dif- SHARP OXFORD BROOKES 1 tled sellers. It proved to be a gentle introduc- ficulties of censorship, lack of paper and the SHARP AWARDS 2 tion to the ‘ordeal by word’ of a full-blown destruction of libraries and book repositories THE SHARP EDGE 3 SHARP conference. during the Blitz. SHARP CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 4 Juliet Gardiner’s plenary lecture provided a Other sessions spanned the globe, from EXHIBITION REVIEWS 5 rich and textured insight into the plight of Sweden, India, Canada and America to Aus- FIFTY YEARS AFTER ... 9 the author, simultaneously revered as roman- tralian typographical journals, German scien- BOOK REVIEWS 12 tific textbooks and Italian translations. Sub- tic solitary artist and castigated for mercantile IN MEMORIAM 19 jects ranged from book prizes to Wayzgooses ‘pursuit of the last possible ninepence.’ In a CONFERENCE REVIEWS 20 crowded and quixotic market authors subsi- [printer’s outings], from Darnton’s commu- CALLS FOR PAPERS 22 dise their writing by riding the merry-go-round nication circuit to Malaysian filing cabinets. ANNOUNCEMENTS 24 of reviews, creative writing courses and liter- Time shifted from the mediæval to the futur- SHARP COPENHAGEN 25 ary festivals. Perhaps, as Juliet Gardiner con- istic; between Peg Katritzky’s presentation of BIBLIOGRAPHY 28 sidered, their perilous finances should be 350 years of illustrated teaching in Johann NEW AWARD 28 boosted by discounts, tax-exemptions or gra- Amos Comenius’s Visible World’(1658) com- SHARP NEWS UPDATE 28
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the printing press to the coming of steam’ SHARP NEWS SHARP AWARDS from one particular angle – that of commerce. Consummately researched and clearly written, this is a book that the scholarly community EDITOR SHARP DeLong Book Prize will surely value for many years to come. With- Sydney Shep, Wai-te-ata Press 2008 out further ado: I can announce that the win- Victoria University of Wellington ner of the 2007 George A. and Jeanne S. PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand With each passing year, SHARP’s George DeLong Book Prize is James Raven for The [email protected] A. and Jeanne S. DeLong Prize for the best Business of Books: Booksellers and the English REVIEW EDITORS monograph in the history of the book has Book Trade 1450-1850. Fritz Levy, Book Reviews – Europe added another name to its increasingly illus- University of Washington, WA, USA trious roll-call of landmark scholarship in the Shafquat Towheed [email protected] field. Past winners include Ellen Gruber English Department, The Open University Garvey, Adrian Johns, Scott Caspar, Kevin 25 June 2008, Oxford University Press, UK Gail Shivel, Book Reviews – Americas Sharpe, Jonathan Rose, Elizabeth McHenry, University of Miami, FL, USA Janine Barchas, Simone Murray, Heather F [email protected] Andrea Williams, and Rimi Chatterjee. Now in its eleventh year, winning the DeLong Book Simone Murray, Book Reviews – Prize marks an important point in the achieve- SHARP Graduate Student Asia/Pacific ment of an individual scholar, as well as in Essay Prize 2008 Monash University, Melbourne, AUS the develop of book history as a discipline. [email protected] Today, and on behalf of my fellow jurors, The winner of this year’s Graduate Stu- standing here in the offices of the largest uni- dent Essay Prize is Joanne Filippone Overty Lisa Pon, Exhibition Reviews versity press in world – one whose official for her article “The Cost of Doing Scribal Busi- Southern Methodist University history is currently being written – it gives me ness: Prices of Manuscript Books in England Dallas, TX, USA great pleasure to report that scholarship in the 1300-1483.” Overty focuses on a period when [email protected] history of the book is indeed in rude health. manuscript production shifted from monas- This year, we received no fewer than 48 titles, teries and other church institutions to urban Katherine D. Harris, E-Resources Reviews and the standard of research, originality of capitalistic stationers, and she addresses three San José State University, CA, USA argument, breadth of coverage, and quality key questions that have bedeviled historians [email protected] of writing was exceptionally high. Subjects of the early book. Firstly, what was the rela- covered by this year’s books ranged from con- tive cost of labor and materials, and how BIBLIOGRAPHER temporary European comic books, to the much did each contribute to determining a Robert N. Matuozzi book trade in Qing dynasty China, from pub- manuscript’s price? Secondly, how did fluc- Washington State University Libraries lishing nineteenth-century popular science, to tuations in the availability of professional Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA consuming postcolonial fiction, and from ed- scribes affect production costs, and thus prices [email protected] iting music in Germany, to marketing litera- of manuscript books, especially after the Black ture in Britain. I am particularly pleased to see Death? And thirdly, did increased demand and SUBSCRIPTIONS subsequent specialization in manuscript pro- The Johns Hopkins University Press how scholarship in book history is becoming duction bring about economies of scale, and Journals Publishing Division increasingly international (and transnational), thus lower the price of manuscript books? PO Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211–0966 and also increasingly interdisciplinary, in its Overty succeeds in extracting economic data [email protected] approach. Together with my fellow jurors Prof. from several late mediæval library inventories F Yannick Portebois (University of Toronto), that provide manuscript valuations. And the and Prof. Marija Dalbello (Rutgers Univer- conclusions she draws cast light on the eco- SHARP News [ISSN 1073-1725] is the sity), we diligently read our way through this nomic factors and production bottlenecks that quarterly newsletter of the Society for the His- embarrassment of riches; we sifted, consid- made printing by moveable type such a prom- tory of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc.. ered and deliberated; we re-read the titles on ising new technology. The Society takes no responsibility for the the final shortlist, and eventually, we came to Joanne Filippone Overty is a PhD candi- views asserted in these pages. Copyright of a decision. Thank you Yannick and Marija, for date in the Department of History at Fordham content rests with contributors; design copy- your selfless dedication to the task at hand. University, currently writing a dissertation on right rests with the Society. Set in Adobe The winning title is a remarkable work, and fifteenth-century monastic choir book produc- Garamond with Wingdings. the result of many years of research and accu- tion in Northern Italy. She and her husband mulated knowledge in the field from one of Darren own Clouds Hill Books, a rare book COPY DEADLINES: 1 March, 1 June, the most distinguished scholars in the his- and manuscript company in Manhattan’s West 1 September, 1 December tory of the book. It comprehensively covers Village. SHARP WEB: the exponential rise in reading matter in the Jonathan Rose & Ezra Greenspan http://sharpweb.org four centuries in England from the ‘arrival of Editors, Book History https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 2 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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as a consecutively read, linearly unfolding body proved status of this literature in religious THE SHARP EDGE of text. Stallybrass argued that the book or circles was reflected in the specific contexts of the codex, as opposed to the scroll, encour- reading: marginal spaces (outdoors, on aged precisely discontinuous reading from the rooftops, in basements, in toilets) and limi- Literature, Book History & the start. On the basis of Renaissance visual rep- nal times (twilight, neither night nor Anxiety of Disciplinarity resentations of the act of reading, Stallybrass day). Erin A. Smith analyzed a contemporary maintained that the bookmark and the index case of a religious reading group in which she An Israel Science Foundation Research (in all its senses: forefinger, pointer, list or participated, where participants forged new Workshop entitled The Anxiety of summary of a book’s contents), have spiritual, communal and personal bonds by Disciplinarity took place on 1-3 July 2008 at been inseparable paraphernalia of the book reading and discussing books together. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer- since ancient times; they are also material signs Robert Orsi explored rising anxiety among Sheva, Israel. Organized by Barbara Hochman of a new way of reading – the ‘cut up’ scroll, mid-twentieth century Catholics responding (Ben Gurion University) the conference turned into a codex, made browsing possible. to children’s reading of comic books. brought literary scholars and historians to- Matthew Brown (University of Iowa) explored Interpretive communities gained addi- gether to discuss the problems manifested in a specific case of discontinuous reading re- tional attention in a number of papers that cross-disciplinary research and scholarship in counted in a very different context: in Mary considered the reception of specific works or the field of book history. The three-day pro- Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, the randomly bodies of work with particular emphasis on gram featured twenty-one papers, organized opened Bible effectively becomes a consoler the audience-author relationship. These pa- into nine panels, which revolved around cen- and advisor in distress, the single most im- pers can be seen as case studies that treat re- tral questions in book history. Leading schol- portant object for the prisoner. In Leah Price’s ception history as a process in which the text’s ars such as Peter McDonald (St Hugh’s Col- talk, the printed book emerged as an uncanny cultural significance is worked out via a kind lege, Oxford), Robert Orsi (Northwestern almost-animate object, as represented in ‘it- of negotiation between the public and the University), Leah Price (Harvard University), narratives,’ eighteenth- and nineteenth-century author, or between the broader readership and Jonathan Rose (Drew University), Peter ‘life stories,’ narrated by the books them- professional critics. James L. Machor (Kansas Stallybrass (University of Pennsylvania) and selves. While these scholars focused mainly on State University) discussed the 1830s others presented their recent work. The infor- visual or narrative representations of the book American reception of Edgar Allan Poe’s mal roundtable setting of the workshop con- as a material ‘thing,’ with all its idiosyncrasies, short stories and gave a socio-historical ex- tributed to the lively and at times heated dis- Ellen Garvey (New Jersey City University) ex- planation for the dramatic shift in the widely- cussion that followed each panel, where the amined the physical artifact itself. In her analy- shared perception of these stories first as methods and objectives of book history were sis, the nineteenth-century scrapbook, in par- comic then as gothic. One factor in this shift, often at stake. ticular The Mark Twain Scrapbook, highlights Machor suggested, was the relationship of Using a wide range of evidence, panelists the fluid boundaries between reading, cutting, Poe’s American audience with the idea of Poe from the Israel, the U.S., the U.K. and Taiwan pasting and writing, and problematizes the the author, whose image changed profoundly variously addressed the material book, read- notion of authorship. over the course of his career from a satirical to ing communities, reception history, the idea If the act of reading can be structured and a dark and brooding writer. of the author, and the place of textual analy- shaped by its object of attention, it can also Olga Kuminova (Ben Gurion University) sis in book history. The diversity of aims and shape communities of readers to a consider- explored Faulkner’s role in shaping the inter- methods at the workshop cannot be neatly able extent. In a panel on “Religion and Read- pretive community which revised the initial categorized along disciplinary lines; indeed ing” two papers, one by Iris Parush (Ben assessment of The Sound and the Fury as ‘in- those lines themselves were closely interro- Gurion University) and one by Erin Smith comprehensible.’ By publicizing his novel in gated. Assumptions about literary and his- (University of Texas), showed how attention interviews and university lectures and by col- torical scholarship were examined alongside to reading as an activity – in fact a group activ- laborating with editors, Faulkner attempted texts and contexts. A recurrent focus was the ity – can provide insight into sweeping his- to make his novel more accessible to the com- tendency in book history to prioritize the con- torical change on the one hand, spiritual com- mon reader and thus promoted his texts of reading, and reading as a social prac- munity and individual subjectivity on the other. groundbreaking yet largely unfamiliar (at that tice, over the contents of books themselves. Concerned with how, when, where and for time) modernist vision. Shlomi Deloia (Ben What kind of methodological merger or col- what purposes books are read, the main ob- Gurion University) explored the initial recep- laboration makes ‘book history,’ and how will ject of inquiry here was less the books read tion of Anzia Yezierska’s immigrant novel the mixture affect the future of the field? than the intersection between the act of read- Bread Givers (1925) in relation to its re-publi- A central point of emphasis in the work- ing and the reader’s shifting personal and col- cation in 1975 after more than forty years of shop was the contexts and conditions that lective cultural identification. Iris Parush ex- neglect. Focusing on the discursive triangle frame and shape reading, on the one hand, amined the transition of nineteenth-century of author-work-audience, Deloia showed and the role of texts as both instrumental to Eastern-European Yeshiva students from oral how Bread Givers was used and misused in and constitutive of reading practices on the communal reading to silent solitary reading in critical discussions, reviews and advertise- other. The ways of reading are inextricably re- the library. This transition was a strong factor ments to negotiate identity claims and group lated to the phenomenology of the book as a in the secularization of traditional Jewish com- boundaries in two key historical periods, each material object that structures the reader’s time, munities. Parush’s account of the ways in of which was characterized by widespread space, and practices. Peter Stallybrass addressed which Yeshiva students read new secular lit- contention regarding the racial and ethnic po- a recent debate about the ‘demise of the book’ erature in Hebrew showed how the unap- sitioning of Jews in the U.S. ... / 4
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... / 3 Both the panel on “Book History and what extent can one rely on a diary entry to Reception History” and the panel on “Reli- provide an accurate reflection of the reader’s CALL FOR NOMINATIONS gion and Reading” raised sharp questions social world, and his/her reading experience? about the professional ‘objectivity’ or ‘subjec- How many texts are necessary to make a valid tivity’ of the critic in relation to his/her own historical argument for historians, and for lit- SHARP’s new constitution is designed in work. What is the role of the critic as a reader erary critics? Finally, who are the historians and part to broaden the field of candidates for the and interpreter of a literary text when who are the literary scholars in the room? Executive Committee and the Board of Di- analyzing its historical reception? What are the The distinction between the two groups rectors. The nominating committee strongly methodological implications of the critic’s became at times thoroughly blurred around encourages members to nominate themselves subjective intervention into the process of the table, as for instance in the representative or others for the Board and for Executive interpreting and generating historical evi- discussion around a controversial passage used Committee offices. Details about the duties dence? by David Stewart (National Central Univer- of each office may be found in the SHARP The informal panel discussions that fol- sity, Taiwan). Exploring the emotional edu- constitution: http://sharpweb.org/ lowed each session provided some of the cation of nineteenth-century men into guilt SHARP_constitution.rtf most compelling and stimulating moments and shame by sentimental-moralistic novels, There are four vacancies on the Board of of the workshop. In those instances, meth- Stewart quoted a passage from a diary by a Directors for the term 2009-2017 and nomi- odological and disciplinary differences between Boston workingman in which the reference nations are welcome. the historians and the literary critics around to a pronoun became the subject of diverse There are five vacancies on the Executive the table became most apparent. Some of the interpretations that cut across theoretical and Committee. Leslie Howsam, the Vice-Presi- salient points of divergence in methods and methodological orientations. Stewart, a litera- dent, will stand for the post of President – a theoretical assumptions between these two ture scholar, offered a psychoanalytic interpre- post that must be filled by a current member groups of book historians were anticipated tation that resolved textual ambiguity as a of the Board or the Executive Council. The in Barbara Hochman’s general introduction subliminally motivated ‘slip” made by the post of Vice-President therefore needs to to the workshop. In her opening remarks diarist. The historian Joan Rubin (University be filled, and nominations are welcome. Patrick Hochman raised a number of questions that of Rochester) objected to this reading and in- Leary is stepping down as Director of Elec- the field of book history still needs to ad- sisted on a more New Critical respect for am- tronic Resources, and nominations for that dress: how to evaluate textual evidence; what biguity – but for a reason more typical of his- post are eagerly sought. Alexis Weedon is step- is the shaping force of interpretive conven- torical methodology – because there is no hard ping down as Director of Publications and tions in particular disciplines; and what is the evidence for resolving this ambiguity one way Awards, and nominations are welcome.David place of ‘close reading’ within the field of book or another. Peter McDonald, a literary theo- Finkelstein is stepping down as Member at history? rist, remarked that the textual anomaly might Large, and nominations are welcome. Ian Both literary critics and historians in the be a mere innocent mistake made in a hurry, Gadd is stepping down as Recording Sec- field are preoccupied with historicizing the and that one should avoid overreading – retary, and nominations are welcome. material, institutional, and social contexts “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” McDonald The other current members of the Execu- within which texts, readers, and acts of read- implied that one can even read too closely, an tive Committee are: Treasurer: James Wald; ing come into contact with one another. In attitude more likely to be associated with the Membership Secretary: Eleanor Shevlin; Di- the current stage of its rapid development, more empirically-minded. rector of External Affairs: Claire Parfait. All Hochman noted, book history is not only The Anxiety of Disciplinarity workshop have indicated their willingness to stand for more historical than literary in its focus; it also, provided many moments of cross-disciplinary re-election. and as a result, often prioritizes context and dialogue between the historians and the liter- Please note that there is no need to gather paratext over and above text. This situation is ary critics who joined up to clarify the scope signatures for a nomination, although nomi- paradoxical, because, on the whole, literary and methods of book history. A host of ques- nators may wish to do so as a demonstration scholars outnumber historians within tions emerge in light of the ongoing dialogue. of broad support for a candidate. SHARP and elsewhere in the field – which Will book history eliminate the divide between Nominations should be sent to the Chair, was also the case in this forum. However, this literary studies and history? Or is it important Beth Luey, at the e-mail address below or at paradox reflects changes that have occurred in to preserve that divide in the interests of both 31 Middle Street, Fairhaven, MA 02719 USA. literary studies more broadly since the emer- disciplines? Will close reading reestablish it- The deadline for nominations is 1 March gence of ‘new historicism’ in the 1980s. The self as literary studies’ distinctive tool? Or will 2009. Questions may be directed to any mem- field of literary studies has become increasingly it become a legitimate methodology for his- ber of the nominating committee: historicist in orientation, while, at the same torians? Will this dialogue have an impact on time, close textual analysis, one of its most the participants’ future work? The future of Beth Luey
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Français). There are even two stuffed dum- much-loved British titles. No French exhibi- EXHIBITION REVIEWS mies representing the discovery by a lantern- tion could omit the Belgian writer and ardent carrying railroad employee of the body of Jules train traveler Georges Simenon, whose plots « Trains du mystère Barrême, prefect of the department of Eure, and characters are often on trains. Modern lying on the rails of the Paris–Rouen line, be- high-speed trains have inspired less murder [Mystery Trains] » tween Paris and Mantes. The 1886 murder of and intrigue on board, perhaps in part be- this public figure with many enemies was cause of their higher security and less omi- 9 November 2007 – 30 April 2008 never solved but generated much sensational nous cars. They appear to inspire more sabo- La Bibliothèque des littératures policières (Bilipo) material, a selection of which is exhibited. tage and terrorism than suspense. [Library of Detective and Crime Literature] The exhibition’s chronological focus from As thrilling as the plots and settings may Paris, France the later nineteenth to the end of the twenti- be, it is the visual aspect of the genre that eth century [ending with material inspired by impresses most. Cover art, print or photo- In the second half of the nineteenth cen- France’s high-speed train, the TGV (Train à graphic, is sensational and often graphic. Post- tury, the new genre of modern detective fic- Grande Vitesse)], and its geographical focus, ers for books and many films are equally so. tion and the new industrial technology of the mainly France but also Britain and the United Formats from cheap illustrated quartos, to train came together as separate but well- States, reflect the collections of this special li- cheaper paperbacks are represented in all sizes. matched products of a new modernity, a brary dedicated to detective and crime fiction. Gallimard’s Série noire, bringing American and modernity that greatly altered human relations The comprehensive and multiformat collec- British ‘pulps’ to French readers are outstand- with space and time, and with one another. tions of the Bibliothèque des littératures ing examples of international circulation of Detective fiction based many of its plots on policières, or Bilipo as it is often called, are based the genre. It is literally a thrilling exhibit. real-life faits divers reported in the popular on the 1985 transfer of the the depository Bilipo consistently installs imaginative ex- press. When the press started to report crimes library collection of the genre held at the hibits that bring to life the materials of their on the railways, detective fiction made use of Bibliothèque de l’Arsenale (a department of collection and the genre itself. It is located at them. In the papers and in the literature, the Bibliothèque nationale de France) to the 48/50, rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, Paris, 5e. murder victims were found in train cars, Paris public library system. Legal deposit for (Métro: Cardinal Lemoine, Jussieu), just be- bloody trunks were discovered on train tracks the genre (one copy) was part of the transfer hind the life-saving sapeurs–pompiers. and in station luggage offices, timetables and agreement. The importance of British and telegraphs were used to catch criminals riding American publications in the genre, and in Carol Armbruster trains, passengers shared closed compartments mystery trains, is reflected in the collections, Library of Congress, Washington, DC with potentially suspicious strangers. Both both in the many French translations of indi- media infused the new adventure of train vidual titles as well as in original material in F travel with a nervous anticipation of danger. many formats. Suspense and sensation dominated both. Fittingly, the exhibition begins with Brit- Book/Shelf Well into the twentieth century similar scenes, ish mystery trains, quickly focusing on themes, and plots were used to create similar Sherlock Holmes’s extensive use of trains and 26 March 2008 – 7 July 2008 effects. Trains travelled farther and faster, and knowledge of train schedules to move his The Museum of Modern Art they continued to inspire crime and detective urgent investigations along. As early as 1866, New York City, USA genres, in text and visual print as well as in Emile Gaboriau’s detective Father Tabaret uses motion pictures, and infuse them all with train schedules to reconstitute a suspect’s Many of us see books as two entities: the heightened suspense and fear. movement in the legal thriller (roman judiciaire) exterior vessel (the cover, the paper, the deco- This well-curated exhibition gives a tangi- L’Affaire Lerouge. As railways develop, so too ration) and the inside information (the words, ble sense of trains and train travel by incorpo- does their presence in the genre. By the time the ideas, the illustration). For modern visual rating objects lent by French historical socie- the monthly Fantômas novels appear (1911- artists, however, there are many more per- ties of train history. Exhibit cases in the first 1913), this arch-criminal anti-hero spreads ter- mutations. In the twentieth century, the book room are framed as train car windows. Visi- ror on board French, European, and interna- created by the artist is less likely to be just a tors look into the cars and see, as if on a table, tional trains, and especially the Paris metro. beautiful object than a reinvention of the a full place setting of historic dinnerware and The exhibition highlights the years 1920 – notion of the book itself. The conceptual art- silverware embossed with French railway 1940 as the golden age of British mysteries ists whose book-related works were on dis- names and historic flat cardboard models of and includes Miles Burton’s Where is Barbara play at the Museum of Modern Art this past late nineteenth-century trains against the fac- Prentice? [1936], J.J. Connington’s Le Crime du summer may make you rethink the idea of ing wall. In the second room visitors are in rail / The Two tickets puzzle [1933], Dorothy the book. the compartments with historic train seats, Sayers’s Five Red Herrings and, above all, the In Book/Shelf, some seventy works from luggage racks (with luggage), framed tourist works of Agatha Christie. American mystery MOMA’s permanent collection deconstruct, photographs of France, railway keys (most writers of this final period before they turn to reimagine, repurpose, and reconstruct books effective in inspiring danger), railway ashtrays, cars and airplanes are represented by writers and their furnishings (let’s not forget the and eventually tickets and timetables printed like Ellery Queen, James Cain, Alice Tilton shelf and the desk). This collection is rich in for the French national railway company, the and Raymond Chandler. French production works by artists who tackle the idea of books SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer is represented primarily by translations of the by stretching the conventions of the medium. ... / 6
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... / 5 Books are a natural subject for contemporary miliar with the iconic images of his beloved for their archives. It was also appropriate that artists: everyday objects that become more than Weimariners that can be found on many cal- the main part of the exhibit encircled the cir- the sum of their parts. The works presented endars.) In Book/Shelf he is represented by culation and reference desks on the Library’s in Book/Shelf use a variety of techniques – the short video Copyright, produced in 1974. first floor. Everyday life is what the Paper Bag photography, film, printing, assemblage, This 1:43s black-and-white film features a static Players are all about, with shows and songs drawing, and sound recording – reflecting a shot of the copyright page of an old Merriam- about not taking a bath, finding Christmas wide diversity of approaches taken by an in- Webster’s dictionary. Wegman’s voice can be ‘all over the place,’ sleeping over with cous- ternational field of artists. Modern artworks heard commenting on the elaborate arrange- ins, and finding reasons to be cheerful. in the shape or guise of books are not always ment of dates. He assumes the personas of Posters in the exhibit reflected the spiraling easy to categorize, but they generally fall into two characters named Bob and Mary, who cost of theater tickets over the last fifty years, the conceptual art genre. After all, the book is seem to be having a mock-serious conversa- and changes in technology were evidenced by the original food for thought, but is that too tion about the extensive copyright statements. the 33-1/3 rpm records, videocassettes, and clever by half? (Warning: If you don’t like con- Wegman manages to make the subject of copy- CD-ROMs of the group’s delightfully wacky ceptual art or whimsical art, don’t read any right at once ridiculous and mysterious, as it musical shows. (For a taste of the Paper Bag further. And if repurposing books seems sac- often seems to students of the subject. Players at work, go to http://www.paperbag rilegious, then this exhibit is not for you.) Perhaps it is appropriate that the exhibit is players.org/otos-preview.html). Thank you The exhibition begins with a documenta- bookended by another work that references notes from children may (or may not) sug- tion of Marcel Duchamp’s Unhappy Readymade the great surrealist Duchamp. David gest changes in literacy over the last half-cen- (1919), a work created when the artist, while Hammons’ Holy Bible is a volume bound on tury, but the sentiment was invariably the traveling, asked his sister back home to hang a the outside so that it appears to be a large same: ‘It was so funny I could stay for all my geometry book on his balcony in order to let version of The New Testament. Inside it’s a cata- life,’ wrote one appreciative child. the wind flip and tear the pages. Another work logue raisonné of works by Duchamp. Depend- The feeling, apparently, has been mutual. by Duchamp shown here is Box in a Valise, ing on your tolerance for irony, this trick may Founder and artistic director Judith Martin the artist’s famous ‘portable museum.’ Many provoke either a nervous smile or a gentle describes ‘the appetites of our audience’ as of the other works in the exhibit are projects groan. having a ‘strong, liberating’ influence that has initiated in the 1960s that share Duchamp’s C. J. Dickerson nurtured ‘surprise, adventure, and excitement’ irreverent attitude toward the art object. These Weston, Connecticut, USA in the Players’ shows. Photographs of the include works by, among others, Dieter Roth, F five Players and their entourage at work are a John Latham, and Lucas Samaras, whose book testament to their engagement with their covered in dressmaker’s pins with protruding The Paper Bag Players: art. Donald Ashwander, the Paperbag Play- cutlery looked particularly sharp to this mu- ers’ ‘musical personality,’ is described at one seum visitor. 50 Years of Theater Art point as being ‘so in tune with his harpsi- Objects by artists who appropriate books chord that he seemed plugged into it.’ by others and who played a pivotal role in the 2 May – 2 August 2008 Over the years The Paper Bag Players art world of 1970s and 1980s are also on show. The New York Public Library amassed a bunch of awards. They were only These include Richard Artschwager, Allen for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center children’s theater to receive an OBIE (off- Ruppersberg, Martin Kippenberger (repre- New York City, USA Broadway theater award), along with a New sented by a sculpture made partly of books), York State Artists Award, the American Theater and Barbara Kruger, whose oversize tome of In a recent description of the beloved chil- Association Award, and the Alliance for Theater a short story by Stephen King has a digital dren’s theater troupe, The Paper Bag Players, and Education Award for ‘sustained and excep- clock built into its stainless-steel cover. Finally, the New York Times observed that ‘like so tional achievement in the field of theater for it introduces a younger generation of artists, many great artists, the players begin with plain young audiences.’ Ms. Martin received Parents including Josh Smith, Liam Gillick, and Brian papers and end with poetry.’ Fifty years’ worth magazine’s first As They Grow Award and Nick Belott who repurposes children’s board books of that poetry recently found a home at the Jr. honored her with a Playful People Award in into sculptural items. The New York Public Library for the Perform- 2005. Many of these awards were also on view. Sound works (On Kawara), prints (Edward ing Arts when the Paper Bag Players donated It is good to be able to report that more Ruscha), and drawings (Steve Wolfe) join their archives to the library’s Billy Rose Thea- sophisticated technology has not changed The other pieces which toy with the book’s tre Division’s collections. To celebrate the oc- Paper Bag Players basic M.O. They’re still mak- physicality. Allan Kaprow’s Cocktail Table is a casion, the library mounted a lively exhibi- ing monster jaws, mummy’s tombs, bottles large volume about Kaprow’s own artwork, tion of scripts, original scores, props, pro- of wizard oil, ballet tutus, armor (complete with attached wooden legs turning it into a grams, posters, photographs, calendars, con- with medals), automobiles, and super-gigan- useful piece of furniture. Milan Knizek’s Globe tracts, and letters from the archive. tic shoes out of cardboard boxes, and creat- Shelf is a large spherical wooden structure with The Paper Bag Players began in 1958 at the ing wistfully expressive faces on brown paper cubbyholes for book storage; this colorful ob- Living Theater in New York City, and though with the merest suggestion of eyes, a nose, ject would look quite at home in an especially they travelled the world over (they estimate and a mouth. well-endowed children’s library. that they have played for over five million Ellen Gilbert One popular artist who tackles the idea of youngsters), the NYPL Performing Arts Li- Princeton, NJ, USA books is William Wegman. (You may be fa- brary is probably the most appropriate place https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 6 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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only individual reading habits but also com- lot more about book history than I do, or ever will. SHARP OXFORD BROOKES mon reading, for estimating trends and (I hope I am wrong about this). I am inclined to be changes in the audiences, and in the skills of deeply intimidated, but rise to the occasion with some ... / 1 reading of specific texts. conversational sallies from which I emerge unscathed. I already knew about SHARP thanks to As a counterbalance, I attended a purely I resolve to listen, learn, and infiltrate as many in- my tutor who enthusiastically told me about theoretical panel, “Book History and Theory” tellectual and academic coteries as possible. (Those the annual SHARP conference. When I de- chaired by Simon Murray, which examined a late nights watching Spooks might just pay off). cided to respond to the call for papers and group of ‘keywords’ associated with a range SHARP 2008 is set to be the highlight of my present my doctoral research, I had no idea of theoretical traditions, such as political academic year… that my proposal would be accepted. The economy, tactics and reading. Shafquat positive result was an encouragement and an Towheed, who talked about reading, posed Over the four days of the conference proper incentive for my continued study. some good questions for the audience, such (which began for me with an outstanding full- The theme of the conference Teaching and as “How do the interventions of political, leg- day post-graduate workshop at Oxford Uni- Text was deliberately wide in order to include islative, economic, and moral forces shape not versity Press on researching in booksellers’ multiple approaches to and points of view only what we read, but how we read? In an archives) certain themes emerged from the on the history of the book. In my opinion, increasingly visual crossmedia and multime- papers and panels. Themes that I found most the variety of participants, each with his/her dia world, where do we look for evidences of engrossing included what Sydney Shep de- own personal experience of studying the di- individual or collective reading, and how do scribed as the contestation (or indeed prolif- verse branches of book history, is the force we interpret this data?” These and the other eration) of national bias in book history; read- and power of this conference. panellists’ remarks as well as the subsequent ers as active participants in book culture; and When I arrived at Oxford I was a little bit discussion fit well with the data and reflec- theoretical positioning within book history worried about my English, thinking I would tions coming out of the panel on the Reading (from inductive and deductive, to abductive be unable to understand many of the ses- Experience Database. methods of approach). Some manifestation sions and discussions; on the contrary, from The final plenary panel “Fifty years since of the exploration of the dialogic relation- the clever opening plenary lecture by Profes- Febvre and Martin” chaired by Professor John ship between the form, content and materiality sor Juliet Gardiner, I felt at ease. Even if my Barnard and featuring Professor Ian Maclean, of the book appeared in many papers and spoken English is not so great, my compre- Professor David McKitterick, Dr. Peter panels. These strands recurred across sessions, hension is good. Luckily my paper was in the McDonald, Dr. Sydney Shep and Professor and frequently appeared together within in- first session of the first day, so I had the pleas- Kathryn Sutherland, was a good conclusion dividual papers. ure of enjoying the rest of the conference with- to the four, intense days of the conference. It The theme of nationalism – of keen in- out anxiety. The night before my departure to connected many of the subjects previously dis- terest to me in my own research on the devel- Oxford I read very carefully the whole pro- cussed and threw into the future interesting opment the Australian public library – arose gramme choosing and marking many sessions issues for our discipline. in a number of contexts through the confer- which I would like to attend. To my great I learned alot from attending my first ence. In the session “Bookselling and the disappointment, I realized that I could hardly SHARP conference, received useful advice for nation,” I found Jyrki Hakapää’s discussion be everywhere. I decided to alternate practical my research, collected much information and, of the ways in which the whole communica- sessions, such as presentations of research above all, opened my mind. It was disappoint- tion circuit of the book was put to work in projects and case studies, with other sessions ing that there were few Italians present. This the task of nationalism in nineteenth-century more theoretical in orientation, particularly on kind of international forum is a very useful Finland of particular interest. The dialectic be- the methodology of our discipline and their opportunity to share and compare our visions tween local and national issues and identities interactions with others. Obviously I can’t of the discipline and I hope to encourage my was clearly seen in this case: local knowledge mention or describe all the panels that I at- colleagues to attend future conferences. of booksellers was crucial in facilitating the tended so I will only focus on some of them. development of a national consciousness. I found enormous interest in, for exam- Sara Mori Hakapää concluded that book history in small ple, the Reading Experience Database [RED], a University of Pisa, Italia linguistic cultures evolved within a different user-friendly, online database of individual set of paradigms to that of big linguistic cen- reading experiences of British subjects at home F tres (such as France, England, and Germany). and abroad from the period 1450-1945 which Hakapää’s paper prompted me to consider I can now consult very easily at home. In ad- 16958.56 km and 21 hours in the air from home parallels of linguistic periphery with geo- dition to a presentation of the database, there (not to mention endless perambulations of Changi graphical (or colonial/post-colonial) periph- were two papers, ‘Teaching “bad men” to read International Airport during a six-hour stopover), ery in the development of book culture. Na- good books: reading in the nineteenth-cen- assisted by a postgraduate student grant from tionalism in the context of the dialectic be- tury prison’ by Rosalind Crone and ‘“Some- SHARP and additional financial support from The tween local/regional and national cultures was thing light to take my mind off the war”: University of Tasmania, I am in the Oxford Town raised in relation to the history of the public British attitudes towards reading matter dur- Hall for the formal conference opening of SHARP library across some sessions. Nicola Smith ing the Second World War’ by Katie Halsey. 2008 Teaching and Text. There are some 250 other addressed the extent to which local collections These two reports clearly demonstrated how people gathered here for the same conference, and I were local or national cultural capital for pub- RED offers an opportunity for examining not have the very strong impression that they all know a lic libraries in Britain in the early twentieth ... / 8
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... / 7 century; identity defined by race rather than Theory: emerging in many papers in many eminent SHARPists at the final panel over region was the topic of papers on the Ameri- guises, mixing it with the material. Panelists the present position of book history as a dis- can public library by Christine Pawley and at the session dedicated to book theory ques- cipline (or rather pluri-discipline, inter-disci- Cheryl Knott Malone. In the session on book tioned why book history (especially in the Brit- pline, or pseudo-discipline as postulated by theory, Trysh Travis discussed how the inscrip- ish/ Canadian/ Australasian/ American con- Ian Maclean) is a product of an almost dizzy- tion of nation through book culture could be text) privileges theories from bibliography, ing sense of possibility arising in the field, critiqued through the lens of political history and literary theory (the ‘triangular with some tightrope walking needed to nego- economy, taking the lead from media studies. model’), and the suggestion was made that tiate the multiple approaches and histories. Such a critique could examine state involve- opportunities could arise from a closer disci- While some view the undeniable impact of ment in the production and distribution of plinary association with media studies. The book history on other disciplines such as lit- new national literatures in wake of post-colo- challenges of addressing those parallel and erary studies as potentially negative (Kathryn nialism, or the ways imperial powers that look sometimes dialectical qualities of the book as Sutherland, for example, observed that “Eng- to export books outside the West attempt to metaphor and metonymic structure, lish studies lost out when it took in social influence developing countries. materiality and textual content, (‘turning in- history” by losing touch with its capacity for Readers: a rich field of interest, drawing ward to content and outward to production’ aesthetic judgement on texts), most many papers. I was fascinated by the session in Sydney Shep’s words) arose frequently. SHARPists appear to be revelling in the dyna- on “Reading communities in Scotland.” Here, Questions fundamental to the practice of mism of a growing discipline and are justifi- Linda Fleming spoke about books as ‘win- book history were asked: how do we concep- ably proud of a hard-won institutional pres- dows on the world’ for Shetland Islanders in tualise how we use the evidence that comes ence. Stephen Ferguson – with whom I dis- a small but diverse community. David from book history; how does the evidence covered a mutual interest in nationalism in Finkelstein offered a paper on work in progress shape our study; how is absence of evidence the public library in our respective countries – on the physical evidence readers purposefully written into book history? The spectre of finds that in its efforts to chart new directions, leave in public library books, postulating on digitisation and digital texts increasingly looms the discipline should not lose sight of the the reasons why readers subvert the prohibi- over investigations into the nature of the good work it has done already. Ferguson spoke tions that public libraries place on such prac- book, and how to go about studying and pre- from the point of view of a working librar- tices. For me, Finkelstein’s observations illus- serving it in the future. ian, applying the findings of book historians trated clearly Heather Jackson’s point that the The closing panel was modelled as “Fifty to the problem of getting students and oth- “physical nature of the book and the history years since Febvre and Martin,” with panel- ers to appreciate books. In this context, of the circulation of books ensure that there lists discussing how scholarly interest in print Stephen considers, modern book historians is always a third party tacitly present at the culture has developed since the publication have provided him ‘with means far superior writing of marginalia” (Marginalia: readers writ- of Martin’s L’Apparition du livre. Ian Willison to those provided by earlier generations’ to ing in books, 2001, 95). Reading within the informed the session of the recent release (yet reach his public. public library can be very social, as readers not to be translated into English) of Henri-Jean only ‘record themselves,’ but also leave coded Martin’s final, posthumously published book, I have not been disappointed. SHARP has ful- messages for others, in ‘community conver- a volume of synthesis on the “history of com- filled all expectations, and given further fuel to my sations.’ munication from the appearance of homo sapi- passion for the field. Importantly, I have secreted a In other sessions the ‘strategic reader’ was ens to the invention of alphabetical writing small stash of business cards from the great, the identified as a concept that needed further in- systems” (Kirsop, ‘Henry-Jean Martin 1924- powerful, and the highly intelligent, to maintain vestigation. Readers were described as ‘poach- 2007, Script & Print, 30.1: 48-53). Eminent that gossamer link of electronic communication ers’ (from Michel de Certeau’s conception of book historian Wallace Kirsop has described across the hemispheres and the seas. I am determined tactics, where texts are ideological tools), which the evolution across Martin’s writing life from to nurture my little strand in the fabric that is the raised the question from Shafquat Towheed “social and economic approaches to an explo- SHARP community. Over a Peroni on the last that “If readers are poachers, who are the game- ration in depth of matters more properly be- evening of the conference, Dennis Landis described keepers?” Peter McDonald suggested in the longing to [Lucien] Febvre’s interest in l’histoire a key benefit of attending SHARP conferences: final panel that readers could be the game- des mentalites and of difficult interdisciplinary the reward of sharing knowledge and ideas and mak- keepers themselves, reading against the grain problems. Reading and writing lead naturally ing connections. “Even if only a handful of people within institutional structures. Towheed of- into consideration of human communication attend your talk,” he said, “there are always at least fered a number of avenues for future investi- from the very earliest discoverable evidence on two people who connect what you are saying somehow gations of reading: what patterns emerge when to historical periods nearer to us. There is a with their own work (whether from subject or meth- we examine reading; how do theorists theo- certain amount of tightrope walking in all this, odology), and therefore come up with good ques- rize reading; how might we assess reading be- especially since Martin does not want to let go tions.” This was exactly my experience at my own yond circuits of communication; do readers of the physical record enshrined in manu- panel. Thanks, SHARP. undermine the globalised economy in which scripts and in printed texts” (52). they participate? The stretching of disciplinary It seems to me that what Kirsop has iden- Heather Gaunt, ambits that characterises the SHARP project tified as Martin’s evolution as a book histo- The University of Tasmania, Hobart, AUS was felt when Towheed suggested somewhat rian has many resonances with the concerns provocatively that “reading is possibly bigger of SHARP in 2008. What Stephen Ferguson than the history of the book.” described to me as some ‘hand-wringing’ by https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 8 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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But according to Martin himself, if the duce: Harold Love’s Scribal Publication in Sev- FIFTY YEARS AFTER ... English translation came late, the book had enteenth-Century England published by Oxford become known rather quickly in its French ver- University Press in 1993. According to him, sion, which several SHARPists kindly answer- this was a major work because it tackled the Final Plenary Session ing my query have confirmed, and this thanks circulation of manuscripts which continued SHARP Oxford Brookes 2008 in particular to Ian Willison who did much to in the seventheenth century side-by-side with promote L’Apparition du livre in English-speak- printed works and helped draw more atten- When the announcement of the final ses- ing countries. Consequently, a laudatory review tion to the circulation of manuscripts in other sion of the SHARP conference in Oxford of the book appeared in The Library Quarterly. countries. Why was it so? A question which Brookes entitled “Fifty Years since Febvre and A Journal of Investigation and Discussion in the was taken up in the following discussion, in Martin” appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Field of Library Science, in Chicago, in July 1959. particular by Peter MacDonald who wondered SHARP News, I was busy preparing my paper Its author was James E. Wells who described about what we mean by ‘a book?’ What is a for a conference entitled « Cinquante ans it as ‘a crucial volume’ and concluded in these book? What is the actual meaning of the d’histoire du livre. De L’Apparition du livre terms: ‘All in all, L’Apparition du livre is a first word for us? (1958) à 2008. Bilan et projets » to take place rate work in an area all too often dominated Professor Ian Maclean (All Souls College, in the National Library of Budapest 21-24 by the second rate.’ Oxford) who spoke next had selected an event, May. Definitely no plagiarism on the part of No wonder that book historians of vari- that of the 1985 conference on the history of the SHARP conference organisers! A coinci- ous countries considered that the fiftieth an- the book in Renaissance Europe, organized dence? Rather, a shared desire to commemo- niversary of Febvre and Martin’s book had to in Tours by Henri-Jean Martin and others at rate Henri-Jean Martin’s recent death in Janu- be celebrated, but not necessarily in the same the Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renais- ary 2007, together with a work which is defi- way. In Budapest, the focus was on the recep- sance. What struck Ian Maclean then was the nitely a landmark in book history, a classic as tion and diffusion of L’Apparition du livre in variety of approaches to the problems of book Martin himself suggests in one of his inter- several European countries and the consequent history, for example regarding the relation- views with Jean-Marc Chatelain and Christian impetus it gave to research in book history, ships author/reader, or publisher/purchaser, Jacob (a volume published in 2004 under the the influence it had as regards the creation of or purchaser/reader. According to Maclean, title Les métamorphoses du livre), remarking that research centres and websites, the publication the Tours conference papers (published in the book became relatively famous some ten of national histories of the book, the devel- 1988 as Le livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance) years only after its publication and adding, opment of academic courses in that field, the raised all the questions that could be asked of ‘Books become classics only progressively.’ role of libraries and print museums for the the book as a material object and as regards Martin is here referring to the international preservation of book archives, etc. its cultural contents and also evoked the reputation of L’Apparition du livre which partly The final session in Oxford Brookes was a professionalization of the history of the book depended on its translation into other lan- somewhat different thing. Five panellists were as a discipline. This point led David guages. Spanish seems to be the first language asked to discuss the development of scholarly McKitterick to question the adequacy or inad- into which it was rapidly translated, and later interest in print culture and of research in the equacy of the various histories of the book, Japanese, Italian, and many other, but never history of the book since 1958. More specifi- limited geographically, and to suggest the German because of opposition by some of cally, each of them had to select either an indi- necessity to look beyond, a point of view the Gutenberg specialists. The English trans- vidual, or a publication, or a theme, or an event shared by Sydney Shep who said that the na- lation, due to David Elwyn Gerard, who which had significant influence on his or her tional bias in such histories was being increas- taught in the College of Librarianship in Ab- own work and whose impact could also be ingly contested. erystwyth, Wales and was also a poet and a felt more widely on some of the approaches Dr Sydney Shep (Victoria University of novelist, was published by New Left Books to book history. To allow everyone to take part Wellington) was the next panellist to inter- in 1976 under the title The Coming of the Book. in the discussion, a short presentation of their vene and her chosen topic was material cul- The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. The best- chosen subjects was included in the confer- ture. She asked several questions on that sub- known review appearing at the time – possi- ence programme. The session was chaired by ject: in what ways does technology shape his- bly the only one – was written by Professor Professor John Barnard (University of Leeds), tory; how do we conceptualize what we call Elizabeth Eisenstein, and published in the following a set pattern: each of the panellists book history; as regards material culture, what Journal of Modern History in September 1978. in turn was asked an opening question allow- kinds of material do we have; how does the Though critical of the translation (somewhat ing him or her to present his theme, and this evidence shape our studies; we have objects excessively, from what I can judge) as well as was followed by a discussion with the other but how do we deal with them? According to of the editing, she presented Febvre and Mar- panellists. The general discussion with the her, how problematic book history is is a ques- tin’s book as ‘still unsurpassed as a work of audience took place in the end, but unfortu- tion which was not raised by Febvre and Mar- synthesis’ and described the latter as ‘a formi- nately with little time left. tin. In her conclusion, Sydney Shep insisted dably energetic and industrious scholar who The first speaker was Professor David on the material condition which is always ‘in presides over a branch of the French knowl- McKitterick (Trinity College, Cambridge) who assistance of the text’ and on the ways edge industry devoted to the history of the first reminded us of the role played by materiality shapes culture. In the ensuing dis- book.’ A new edition of the same translation L’apparition du livre in stressing the division cussion, two interesting points were made, was published in 1997 by Verso (the present between book and manuscript, and then fo- one by Professor Kathryn Sutherland who name of New Left Books) but it seems from cused on the book he had chosen to intro- remarked that digitalization, which she con- the catalogue that it is now out of print. ... / 10
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siders physical but not material, will be a huge eral problems of book history whereas the raison de l’opposition de certains spécialistes challenge for SHARP; the other by David session papers were necessarily more limited de Gutenberg. La traduction anglaise, due à McKitterick who pointed out that there is the in scope. Besides, the diversity of approaches David Elwyn Gerard, poète, romancier et same problem of materiality as regards mu- of the five panellists and the very different enseignant au collège de bibliothècaires sic manuscripts. ‘objects’ they selected for their own interven- d’Aberystwyth au Pays de Galles, n’a été Professor Kathryn Sutherland (St Anne’s tion worked as reflectors on one another and publiée qu’en 1976 par la maison d’édition College, Oxford) presented herself as a spe- as such proved the formula chosen by the or- New Left Books sous le titre The Coming of cialist of English Literature but also a textual ganizers was an interesting one. What comes the Book. The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. Le critic and a bibliographer. This is the reason out of it all is the multiplicity of the prob- compte rendu le plus connu – peut-être le why the personality she selected was W.W. lems raised by the history of the book, an seul – qui en est paru à l’époque a été rédigé Greg (who died in 1959) who, in his major object which is both material and cultural, par la Professeure Elizabeth Eisenstein et work on bibliography had shown that “to a which encloses a specific text in a given way publié dans le Journal of Modern History en bibliographer the text is irrelevant,” but also and at a given time, making it a historical item. septembre 1978. Bien que critiquant that “books are of importance only as the These are some of the points discussed in sévèrement la traduction (selon moi, de vehicle by which … its contents reach us.” L’Apparition du livre, which will continue to be manière un peu excessive, autant que j’ai pu According to her, this great representative of discussed for many years to come. en juger) ainsi que certains défauts de the New Bibliography recognized the essen- présentation, elle décrit le livre comme « une tial link between bibliography, textual criticism Marie-Françoise Cachin synthèse jusqu’ici jamais surpassée » et voit and literary criticism. Following this, David Université Paris Diderot, France en Martin « un chercheur d’une énergie et d’une McKitterick noted that Greg had to make de- capacité de travail impressionnantes, à la tête cisions on how to edit manuscripts. And we F du domaine de connaissances consacré en were reminded that when Febvre and Martin’s France à l’histoire du livre. » Une nouvelle book was published, the analysis of texts had édition de la même traduction est parue en changed, had been displaced, leading to ge- Séance du clôture colloque 1997 chez Verso (le nom actuel de New Left netic studies among other things. SHARP Oxford Brookes 2008 Books) mais elle semble aujourd’hui épuisée. The final speaker was Dr Peter McDonald Selon Martin lui-même, si la traduction (St Hugh’s College,Oxford) who began by Quand est parue dans le numéro de anglaise a été réalisée tardivement, le livre s’est declaring that he became a book historian be- printemps 2008 de SHARP News l’annonce fait connaître rapidement dans sa version cause he was a reader, a reader who was rest- de la séance de clôture du colloque SHARP française, ce que m’ont confirmé plusieurs less about literary criticism. He also expressed 2008 à Oxford Brookes, intitulée « Fifty Years membres de SHARP en répondant his regret of being now unable to read a book since Febvre and Martin, » j’ètais en train de aimablement à ma demande d’information without taking into account the way it is pre- rédiger une communication pour un autre sur la liste, et ceci grâce en particulier à Ian sented. He somewhat rendered Maurice colloque organisé à la Bibliothèque nationale Willison qui s’est beaucoup démené pour la Blanchot – his chosen author – responsible de Budapest du 21 au 24 mai et intitulé promotion de L’Apparition du livre dans les for this because it was the French writer who « Cinquante ans d’histoire du livre. De pays anglophones. En conséquence de quoi made him aware of literature’s dependence L’Apparition du livre (1958) à 2008. Bilan et est paru à Chicago dès juillet 1959 un compte on a range of institutions for its existence. He projets. » On ne saurait accuser les rendu du livre dans The Library Quarterly. A illustrated his remark with the blurb from organisateurs d’Oxford d’un quelconque Journal of Investigation and Discussion in the Field Coetzee’s novel Foe, written by the writer ex- plagiat ! Il s’agit plutôt d’une coïncidence, d’un of Library Science, signé par James E. Wells. cept for one sentence added by the publisher désir partagé de commémorer la mort en Celui-ci décrivait le livre comme « un volume without telling Coetzee about it. His conclu- janvier 2007 d’Henri-Jean Martin et de son crucial » et concluait en ces termes: « Tout bien sion was that “the book is an idea as well as a œuvre de référence en histoire du livre, un considéré, L’Apparition du livre est un ouvrage material object.” classique comme le suggère l’auteur lui-même de toute première qualité dans un domaine As already said, the general discussion was lors d’un de ses entretiens avec Jean-Marc trop souvent dominé par des travaux de very short. However, Ian Willison could nar- Chatelain et Christian Jacob (volume publié qualité médiocre. » rate to the audience how in 1958 he took en 2004 sous le titre Les Métamorphoses du livre): Il n’y a donc rien d’étonnant à ce que des L’Apparition du livre to his colleague in the « Au total, L’Apparition du livre n’a commencé historiens du livre de divers pays aient University of Chicago. He also presented à bénéficier d’une certaine réputation qu’une considéré que le 50ème anniversaire du livre de Henri-Jean Martin’s latest – last – book, pub- dizaine d’années après sa publication (…) Les Febvre et Martin devait être célébré, mais pas lished posthumously in January 2008 and livres ne deviennent des classiques que petit à nécessairement de la même manière. A Buda- entitled Aux sources de la civilisation européenne. petit. » pest, l’accent portait sur le réception et la dif- Other problems discussed were the place to Martin fait ici référence à la renommée fusion de L’Apparition du livre dans plusieurs be given to translation and the transnational internationale d’un ouvrage qui reposait en pays européens et l’impulsion donnée de ce circulation of books to end with the funda- partie sur sa traduction en d’autres langues. fait à la recherche en histoire du livre, sur son mental well-known question: “Why shouldn’t La première de ces traductions s’est faite, sem- influence en matière de création de centres de book history be a discipline of its own,” show- ble-t-il rapidement, en espagnol, puis plus recherche et de sites électroniques, de rédaction ing that this final session had reached its aim tard en japonais, en italien et en bien d’autres d’histoires du livre nationales, de in making SHARPists aware of the more gen- langues encore, mais jamais en allemand en développement de formations universitaires https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 10 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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dans ce domaine, sans oublier le rôle joué par auteur /lecteur, éditeur/acheteur, ou acheteur/ quant à la façon de publier les manuscrits. Et les bibliothèques et les musées de l’imprimerie lecteur. Selon lui, les communications faites on a rappelé que lors de la publication du livre pour la conservation des archives, etc. lors de ce colloque, publiées en 1988 sous le de Febvre et Martin, les méthodes d’analyse La session de clôture à Oxford Brookes a titre Le livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance, des textes avaient déjà évolué, en particulier choisi une approche assez différente en soulevaient toutes les questions possibles à vers les études génétiques. organisant une table ronde avec cinq propos du livre en tant qu’objet matériel et de Dernier participant à ce panel, le Dr Peter intervenants invités à discuter du son contenu culturel, et abordaient aussi la pro- McDonald a commencé par déclarer qu’il était développement de l’intérêt pour la culture de fessionnalisation de l’histoire du livre comme devenu historien du livre parce qu’il était l’imprimé et de la recherche en histoire du livre discipline de recherche. A ce sujet, David lecteur, un lecteur que la critique littéraire depuis 1958. Plus précisément, chacun d’eux McKitterick s’est interrogé sur le bien-fondé tracassait. Il a aussi exprimé son regret d’être à devait choisir une personnalité, ou une publi- ou non des diverses histoires du livre, limitées présent incapable de lire un livre sans tenir cation, ou un thème, ou un événement, qui géographiquement, et a suggéré qu’on regarde compte de sa présentation. Il en a avait influé de manière significative leurs au-delà, point de vue partagé par la Dr Sydney partiellement rendu responsable Maurice propres travaux et dont l’impact restait per- Shep (Victoria University of Wellington) qui a Blanchot – sa personnalité de référence – ceptible sur un plan plus général dans les souligné que l’approche nationale de ces puisque c’est l’écrivain français qui lui a fait diverses façons d’aborder l’histoire du livre. histoires était de plus en plus contestée. prendre conscience de la manière dont Pour faciliter la discussion, un court texte de C’était à présent à celle-ci de présenter son l’existence de la littérature dépendait de toutes présentation du sujet choisi par eux figurait point de vue et son intervention s’est articulée sortes d’institutions. Il a illustré cette dans le programme du colloque. La séance elle- autour de la notion de culture matérielle, à remarque en évoquant la quatrième de même, présidée par le Professeur John Barnard travers plusieurs questions: de quelle manière couverture du roman de Coetzee Foe, dont le (université de Leeds), a suivi un plan précis: la technologie façonne-t-elle l’histoire; com- texte a été rédigé par l’auteur à l’exception une question était d’abord posée à chacun des ment conceptualisons-nous ce que nous d’une phrase ajoutée à son insu par son intervenants pour lui permettre de présenter appelons ‘histoire du livre’; en ce qui concerne éditeur. Il a conclu en considérant que « le livre son choix, puis suivait une discussion avec les la culture matérielle, quelles sortes de matériau est une idée ainsi qu’un objet matériel. » autres membres de la table ronde. La discus- avons-nous; comment nos recherches Comme indiqué dès le début, la discus- sion générale avec le public n’a eu prennent-elles en compte les preuves; nous sion générale a été très brève. Toutefois, elle a malheureusement lieu qu’à la fin, alors qu’il disposons d’objets mais qu’en faisons-nous? permis à Ian Willison de raconter comment restait très peu de temps. A son avis, la question problématique de ce en 1958 il avait apporté L’Apparition du livre à Après avoir rappelé le rôle joué par qu’est l’histoire du livre n’a pas été soulevée ses collègues de l’université de Chicago. Il a L’Apparition du livre en mettant l’accent sur la par Febvre et Martin. Sydney Shep a beaucoup aussi présenté rapidement le dernier livre différence entre manuscrit et livre, le premier insisté sur les conditions matérielles à l’appui (posthume) d’Henri-Jean Martin paru en intervenant, le Professeur David McKitterick du texte et sur la façon dont la matérialité janvier 2008 et intitulé Aux sources de la civilisa- (Trinity College, Cambridge) s’est concentré informe la culture. Ces remarques ont suscité tion européenne. Parmi les quelques points sur l’ouvrage choisi par lui: Scribal Publication entre autres deux commentaires intéressants: soulevés ensuite, relevons la question de la in Seventeenth-Century England d’Harold Love, d’une part, la Professeure Kathryn Sutherland traduction et de la circulation transnationale publié aux presses universitaires d’Oxford en (St.Anne’s College, Oxford), a évoqué la ques- des livres, tandis que la toute dernière ques- 1993. A son avis, il s’agit là d’une œuvre ma- tion de la numérisation, pour elle plus ‘phy- tion: « Pourquoi l’histoire du livre ne serait- jeure parce que l’auteur y traite de la circulation sique’ que ‘matérielle,’ et qui à son avis va être elle pas une discipline en soi? » prouvait bien des manuscrits qui s’est poursuivie au cours un véritable défi pour SHARP; d’autre part, que cette séance de clôture avait atteint son du XVIIème siècle parallèlement à celle des David McKitterick, a rappelé que le problème but en faisant apparaître des problèmes ouvrages imprimés et parce qu’il a contribué a de la matérialité se pose de la même manière généraux en histoire du livre, par opposition attirer l’attention sur la circulation des pour les textes de musique manuscrits. aux communications du colloque aux sujets manuscrits dans d’autres pays. Pourquoi? Quatrième intervenante, Kathryn Suther- nécessairement plus limités. Autre point Question reprise lors de la discussion, en land s’est tout d’abord présentée comme positif: la diversité d’approche des cinq particulier par le Dr Peter MacDonald (St spécialiste de littérature anglaise mais aussi de intervenants de la table ronde et les différents Hugh’s College, Oxford) qui s’est interrogé critique textuelle et de bibliographie. Pour cette ‘objets’ sélectionnés par eux se sont avérés sur la signification du terme ‘livre.’ Qu’est-ce raison, son choix s’est porté sur W.W. Greg complémentaires et se sont éclairés qu’un livre? Que signifie ce mot pour (mort en 1959) dont l’œuvre magistrale en mutuellement. En conclusion, ce qui ressort nous aujourd’hui? bibliographie a montré que « pour un de cette séance, c’est la multiplicité des ques- L’orateur suivant, le Professeur Ian bibliographe le texte n’a pas de pertinence » tions que pose l’histoire du livre, cet objet à la Maclean (All Souls College, Oxford) avait mais également que « les livres n’ont fois matériel et culturel, réceptacle d’un texte sélectionné un événement, le colloque sur d’importance que comme véhicule grâce auquel spécifique proposé à une certaine époque sous l’histoire du livre dans l’Europe de la Renais- les textes nous parviennent. » Selon elle, ce une certaine forme, objet par conséquent sance organisé en 1985 par Henri-Jean Martin représentant de la Nouvelle Bibliographie a historique. Ce sont des points déjà étudiés entre autres, au Centre d’Etudes Supérieures reconnu le lien essentiel entre la bibliographie, par les auteurs de L’Apparition du livre, et qui de la Renaissance à Tours. Ian Maclean avait la critique textuelle et la critique littéraire. David continueront certainement à l’être pendant de été frappé alors par la variété des approches en McKitterick est intervenu sur ce point pour nombreuses années à venir. histoire du livre, par exemple les relations souligner que Greg avait dû faire des choix Marie-Françoise Cachin Université Paris Diderot, France
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shape as a by-product of the fluctuating strat- seventeenth centuries in England. The vol- BOOK REVIEWS egies of gens de lettres who sought to establish ume at once depicts and argues for the “tex- their legitimacy in a cultural field that was it- tual production of women’s selves” (2) – that self in considerable flux, as state control over is, the notion that in “an increasingly textual Gregory S. Brown, Literary Sociability and Liter- the theater was transformed by a new bureau- world” models for selfhood are largely textu- ary Property in France, 1775-1793: Beaumarchais, cratic ethos prevailing at court in the final years ally mediated as well as expressed, rather than the Société des Auteurs Dramatiques and the of the Old Regime and ultimately, of course, preexisting their inscription (1). This empha- Comédie Française. Aldershot, UK and by the Revolution. Literary property was an sis on the textual nature of the self enables Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. x, 186p., in- effect of the claims of writers to a valorized the essays in the volume to move artfully dex. ISBN 0754603865. $100. £50 (hardback). status as the “repositories of the ‘genius’ of among and across a range of methodologies, the Nation” (126). Therefore, “[a] discourse from the material history of texts to literary Beaumarchais remains an iconic figure in for the public good, more than one of indi- close reading to minority historiography to the history of literary property rights in France. vidual rights, informed the first direct call for an almost poststructuralist preoccupation Following a dispute with the Comédie française literary property rights legislation” (127), Brown with the linguistic nature of the self. With over payments for his hugely successful play notes, referring to a petition presented by La thoroughness and liveliness, the essays ex- Le Barbier de Séville, he called a meeting at his Harpe to the National Assembly in August plore the proliferation of genres in which life home on July 3, 1777. Two dozen playwrights 1790. writing took place in this period, as well as the formed the Société des auteurs dramatiques (SAD) The crucial point is that the battle for liter- different sorts of selves able to be presented that day, engaging a collective fight for the in- ary property was primarily about establishing or represented within and especially between terests of dramatic authorship in authorial disinterest – not interest – generally these disparate forms and genres – genres that eighteenth-century France. The event would against accusations of unseemly self-pro- include romance and history, certainly, but also seem to mark the revolt of writers against the motion. This was the foundation unifying all prefaces, diaries, recipes, marginalia, letters, aristocratic institutions that had long domi- factions in the debate. Whether defending a devotional tracts, mothers’ manuals, lyric po- nated the cultural sphere, and against the anti- courtly or a more ‘modern’ patriotic style, or etry, conversion narratives, and scientific trea- quated values which required those writers, in as in the case of Beaumarchais himself, trying tises. The subjects of these essays range from the name of ‘courtly gentility’ and honnêteté, to negotiate a compromise between the two, well-known figures such as Lady Anne to renounce their own legal and economic writers above all endeavored to project their Clifford and Margaret Cavendish to less fa- rights. Gregory Brown’s illuminating new dedication to a cause that was far larger than miliar types such as Mary Frith, An Collins, study shows, however, that the situation was their own personal benefit. In this respect, Elizabeth Richardson, and the anonymous not so straightforward. In fact, writers were there was more continuity with tradition in hands filling the margins and endpapers of hardly keen to break the yoke of noble con- the crusades of Beaumarchais and his fellow early modern recipe books and family psalters trol over literary life. Brown argues instead that playwrights than normally assumed. Scholars with records of births, deaths, illnesses, and their opposition to the Comédie arose “from a have seen in the campaigns of the SAD a sharp marriages. One comes away from the volume combination of very personal frustration and break with the authorial practices of an earlier impressed by the sheer range of spaces and a very earnest desire to engage with, rather than age. Literary Sociability offers an intriguing al- places, both formal and informal, material and destroy, those institutions” (163). They ternative: to observe in the SAD not a depar- ideological, that women found for writing, sought recognition within the Old Regime ture from the characteristic dynamics of Old recording, and imagining both their lives and cultural field, not escape from it, and their Regime literary life, but an extension of them their selves, nothwithstanding the well-re- demands and arguments are reconsidered in into a modern cultural sphere in which writ- hearsed limitations placed on women’s literacy this light. ers can no more pursue their economic inter- in the early modern period. We get as a consequence a far richer and ests as ‘professionals’ today than they could The essays attend carefully and productively more interesting story, recounted by Brown in the ‘first literary field’ of the early modern to material questions and questions of inter- in five extremely well-researched chapters period. est to book historians, including differences which, drawing in large part from the archives Geoffrey Turnovsky between manuscript and print, published and of the Comédie française, follow the develop- University of Washington archival materials, as well as the effects on the ment of SAD from its 1777-80 battles with depiction of the self precipitated by writing the Comédie to the literary property laws of F for a public audience, for an audience of one’s 1793. The latter recognized the rights of au- peers, or for no audience at all. Throughout, thors over their works for the duration of Michelle M. Dowd and Julie A. Eckerle, eds., the essays draw attention to the ambivalent their lives plus ten years and created a public Genre and Women’s Life Writing in Early Modern reception of women’s writing and women’s domain. The endpoint is deceptive, though, England. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. xii, 212p. authority, and above all to the strictures on since Brown’s concern is not to trace the in- ISBN 9780754654261. £50.00. publicity applied to women at the time. Yet exorable march towards this legislation, or they also do a marvelous job of representing towards the emancipation of writers from the Genre and Women’s Life Writing is comprised what Josephine Donovan calls the many and old authorities. The battle lines are more per- of ten essays and an introduction that explore varied “assertions of literary agency by women” meable and the teleology less direct in his ac- the interplay between women’s textual pro- (179) in early modern England, including their count. There was nothing inevitable about lit- duction and their elaborate and diverse modes ingenious, deliberate, and sometimes quite hi- erary property law. Rather, the notion takes of self-representation in the sixteenth and larious negotiations of the cultural proscrip- https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 12 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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tion against women’s self-publication. This is France and Jacques Michon of the University ductively be conceptualized together, so that no simple narrative of women’s literary and of Sherbrooke in Québec, Canada. They they can answer questions about the way in cultural victimization, although these essays brought together scholars, from La which African readers can shape the choices are not blind to the challenges literate women Francophonie as well as from Anglophone and of European, as well as African, publishers. of all classes faced. The only drawback here is other cultures, to think on a large and system- In sum, these essays help us to think about the fact that very little is said about male- atic scale about the problems of studying the what we mean when we talk about ‘print cul- authored life writing in this period, and par- book in world history. Unlike SHARP, these ture’ and ‘literary culture.’ The terminology ticularly about writng by non-aristocratic scholars never established themselves as a for- of print culture, often and problematically men. As a result, a number of the conclu- mal society, but organized a linked series of made synonymous with ‘book history,’ re- sions advanced here are open to a rather pre- symposia: Sherbrooke 2000; Prato 2001; Lon- fers to a society wherein news, knowledge and dictable query: how can we be sure that the don 2004; Sydney 2005. This review concerns politics, as well as novels, histories and po- self-authorizing traits, strategies, and stylistic the London gathering, whose papers have been ems are circulated by print; and where the men and formal choices identified throughout skillfully edited by three British adherents of and women who make their livings from these writings are characteristic of women’s the informal ‘Sherbrooke-Prato’ group. supplying print wield great cultural power, writing in particular? What if writing about The editors’ conceptual framework for the sometimes unknown to their contemporar- the self, which was not really encouraged for book is summed up in the title. ‘Literary cul- ies. In discussions of a literary culture, the anyone in this period outside the admittedly tures’ refers to the interwoven processes of printedness of the means of communication formulaic mode of spiritual autobiography, authorship, reading and publishing – or to and the exercise of hegemony is often required materially and “rhetorically sophisti- their counterparts in other times and different downplayed. The editors and contributors of cated discourses of the self ” (1) regardless of cultures. And ‘the material book’ anchors these Literary Cultures and the Material Book have the author’s sex or social location? histories firmly to the bibliographical object in brought together a dazzling range of short which they resulted. There is a preface by Robert essays which help us to understand that Jody Greene Darnton, an introduction by all three editors materiality and literariness go hand in hand. University of California, Santa Cruz and an essay by Simon Eliot discussing the material factors in literary culture from 2500 Leslie Howsam F BCE to 1900. David McKitterick provides a University of Windsor critical afterword. In between, the world is di- Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash and Ian Willison, vided between east and west, metropole and F eds., Literary Cultures and the Material Book. colony. Five essays on ‘non-western traditions London: The British Library, 2007. xix, 444p. of the book’ are followed by five on ‘the west- Mirjam Foot. Bookbinders at Work : Their Roles ill. ISBN 9780712306843. £45. ern book in history,’ eight on the various Eu- and Methods. New Castle DE: Oak Knoll Press ropean ‘language empires,’ and a further eight and London: The British Library, 2006. v, Consider the plight of the scholar who has on ‘the Anglophone tradition.’ As Darnton 163p. ill. ISBN 1584561688 (Oak Knoll); staked a claim to knowledge of book history, observes, “book historians have always recog- 0712349014 (BL). $59.95, £ 30.00. or of l’histoire du livre or Geschichte des Buchwesens. nized the arbitrariness of confining their sub- Mired in the European, or North American, ject within national boundaries” (xvi). Moreo- Mirjam Foot has written a compact, beau- or Australia-New Zealand context, and simul- ver, the conventional western turning-points tifully illustrated, reference work covering Eu- taneously limited to thinking in terms of only (the codex, Gutenberg, steam printing, copy- ropean bookbinding primarily between 1500 a couple of centuries worth of history, many right law, the Internet and so forth) are useful, and 1800. Her audience is book historians of us have woken up in the last two or three but not exclusive, ways to understand how and bibliographers, and her goal is clear: to years to the realization that we don’t really the written word has traveled within commu- show that “bindings are an essential part of know what we are talking about. ‘The book’ nities and created new communities of its own. book production, if we consider its full cycle has a longer history, and a deeper cultural Despite the open spirit of the editors, some from writer to reader” (1). Bookbinding thrust than most scholars can imagine. And readers will be disappointed that the essays are manuals serve as her primary sources, with yet our students sense it – at least mine do – organized around national identities. The glo- supporting evidence from other archival ma- and ask disconcerting questions about bal reach notwithstanding, various kinds of terials. Step by step, she shows how a book- postcolonial and transnational relationships, transnational relationships are not developed binder’s work can be bibliographically signifi- and about Asian or African or Native-North as well as they might be with a structure less cant for the study of the pre-1800 handpress American cultures, to which we professors oriented to political geography. More success- period. Foot has long articulated the social have no ready answers. More distressingly, ful has been the way in which the conference meanings embedded in bookbindings – here some of us may wonder why we ourselves and the volume have problematized the rela- she has persuaded not with bindings them- never asked those questions during our own tionship of books to literatures. In western selves (though there are many useful illustra- intellectual formative years. academic settings, religious, scientific and other tions of bindings) but with historical records. Fortunately, a cosmopolitan group of works are often categorized as non-literary. But Various Anglo-American bibliographic scholars has begun addressing itself to these in the non-western world, the literary has dif- stances toward bookbinding are succinctly questions over the past decade. Their found- ferent meanings. In the case of modern Af- summarized in the first chapter. She lauds ers were Jean-Yves Mollier of the University rica, Isabel Hofmeyr shows how the secular Strickland Gibson, David McKitterick and D.F. of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in and religious arms of the book trade can pro- McKenzie among others, who understand ... / 14
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and articulate that binding decisions can be Foot’s work belongs on the reference shelf the Low Countries or even in Spain made the relevant to textual production. She brings to- of any book historian – it is the result of her journeymen-printers an easy target for the In- gether evidence that long before the nineteenth long and fruitful attention to bookbinding as quisition. It also left them wide open to accu- century there were various ‘retail’ processes in a serious bibliographic subject. We can only sations and denunciations by jealous co-work- bookbinding. In this, she joins with histori- hope she will keep adding to our body of ers, commercial rivals or personal enemies. ans Stuart Bennet and Nicholas Pickwoad, who knowledge. Fully conscious of their vulnerability, they had show that binders in the early period both Chela Metzger to exercise extreme caution in their day-to-day sold bound books and marketed them to University of Texas at Austin dealings with Spaniards and other foreigners specific types of readers. in the printing business. This helps highlight To investigate the ways by which binders F the paramount importance of friendship and influenced the text during the various forward- kinship ties in this milieu. The company one ing (structural) and finishing (decorative) proc- Clive Griffin. Journeymen-Printers, Heresy, and the kept in a country where few people could be esses, Foot devotes two chapters to the ex- Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Oxford: trusted, where a misguided friendship or a amination of English, French, German, and Oxford University Press, 2005. xiii, 318p. ISBN careless word spoken in public or in private Dutch bookbinding manuals. She has sup- 0199280738. $150.00 could lead one directly to the jails of the In- plied excellent translations for the non-Eng- quisition, became as crucial to one’s survival lish sources, and created an appendix for both With this positively brilliant account of the as making sure colleagues and neighbors saw German and French binding terms. Archival history of (mostly) French journeymen-print- one attending mass or fasting. materials such as guild rules and legal papers ers in sixteenth-century Spain, reconstructed One of the best things about Clive Grif- corroborate information from the manuals. from their surviving inquisitorial trials, Clive fin’s book – and there are many – is that even These technical chapters might require of the Griffin has provided scholars with an out- the most demanding of historians will find readers some background in bookbinding ter- standing piece of historical investigation. In something to stimulate or inform them; reli- minology and a basic understanding of book- ten dense but clearly written chapters – that, gious and social historians as well as micro- binding practices, but will reveal to any re- truth be said, could have benefited from a historians and historians of the book. Based searcher, how the many bookbinding steps little more typographical breathing room, ei- on primary documents whose fragmentary could alter how texts were experienced. ther in the form of paragraph breaks or sec- and methodologically problematic nature has Finally, Foot examines the economic reali- tion headings – Griffin follows a handful of in the past led to excessive speculation, sur- ties a pre-industrial binder faced, and presents these men as they crisscrossed the Iberian Pe- prisingly little room is left for supposition in verbal and pictorial descriptions of the bind- ninsula hoping to practice their craft and earn this work. Making extensive use of archival er’s trade. Her currency tables help the calcula- a living. He meticulously describes how presses records from the major tribunals of the Span- tion of complex price rates, and to more eas- were organized and functioned, along with ish and Portuguese Inquisitions, the author ily render the bookbinder’s daily life, she trans- the actual work done by immigrant proofread- proves incredibly thorough in cross-checking lates those rates into the price of common ers, type-casters, pullers, beaters, and composi- information from different trials throughout foodstuffs. The figures demonstrating in- tors, examining also their places and practices the Iberian Peninsula, while displaying an creased book production and increased mate- of sociability inside and outside of the print impressive command of sixteenth-century rial costs are clear – the economic pressure to shop. But why did these men (and sometimes Spanish typography. This allows him to re- work faster is undeniable. Letters of complaint women) travel to a land whose language they construct to a sometimes astounding degree from authors and other binders about each did not know and whose population was the travels and tribulations of these itinerant other’s shoddy practices detail how well they largely hostile to them because of their sus- print workers, making them literally come alive all understood a bookbinder’s power to lose, pected Protestant beliefs? For many French by giving the reader an amazingly vivid sense spoil, cut and shuffle the text. Socially, historic printers, booksellers and artisans of the book of their professional, personal and even spir- guild requirements for reading ability and god- willing to risk their lives, the reason was quite itual lives. Although centered on Spain and fearing behavior need not be taken as the simple. Sixteenth-century Spain was the pro- its local printing industry, the wealth of infor- norm, but attest to an active and proud trade, verbial land of opportunity. Wages were high, mation extracted and collected here regarding despite the somewhat low status assigned to the level of required qualifications or formal the production of sixteenth-century books bookbinding. Illustrations of binderies show training quite low, and industry regulations and the daily life of the men and women who lively men and women busily meeting the virtually non-existent. produced them, can easily be transposed and needs of the reading public. As he tries to understand why and how applied to other early modern typographical A separate bibliography would have some individuals managed to walk away with centers in Europe. Clive Griffin’s probing brought together the excellent sources Foot ‘only’ an imprisonment or galley sentence, analysis and imaginative yet cautious and rig- uses. Although she does not give the same while others were doomed and perished at orous reading of the printed material and level of detail for Italian and Spanish book- the stake, Griffin delves ever deeper into the manuscript sources – admittedly, exception- binding practices that she gives for the north- social and mental world of these skilled but ally rich and detailed in the case of the Spanish ern European regions, her historical sources often uneducated laborers. As it turns out, Inquisition – stands as a first-rate example support the widespread power of bookbind- more often than not, one’s fate hinged upon for all those who wish to recapture the elusive ers over the text. Her sources also provide criti- one’s familiarity – or lack thereof – with the world of the artisans of Renaissance book cal context to the role as retailers that binders procedures of the Holy Office as a legal insti- culture. played in textual production before 1800. tution. Past and present association with Guy Lazure avowed or suspected Protestants in France, University of Windsor https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 14 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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Ann R. Hawkins, ed., Teaching Bibliography, lar project has contributed to student tive teaching approaches should be developed Textual Criticism, and Book History. London: enrolments” (Sydney J. Shep); “The assign- for such vital areas as copyright, author-pub- Pickering & Chatto, 2006. 199p. ISBN ment fostered an understanding of the world lisher-patron financial arrangements, 9781851968343. US$99. that [the student] would never have gained bookselling, collecting, or author-editor rela- from ‘any textbook’” (Jean Lee Cole); “One tionships. (Having been educated in a ‘pro- Can book history, as Sean C. Grass sug- of these students pronounced editing to be, fession of authorship’ program with a dic- gests in one essay from this collection, prove of all things, ‘addictive’” (Ian Gadd); and, as tum to ‘follow the money,’ I learned a great the “literary galvanism of the post-modern Maura Ives ties it up, “They now understand deal from such useful undertakings as age?” To those of us who suspect so, based why literary scholars might need to know analyzing the American Book Trade Directory on our own classroom experience or inter- something about books.” or participating in student book-collecting ests, Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and The essays integrate expertise in historical competitions.) Students of all periods of lit- Book History provides a welcome gathering processes, variously in papermaking, typecast- erature, history, or the arts can readily apply of ideas. Contributions by subject-area ex- ing, printing, printmaking, and bookbinding, book-historical learning to interpretation, perts, veteran educators, and assistant profes- as well as in research methodologies, in mani- analysis, and creative production – not to sors blend innovation and tradition. The col- festations of ‘the book’ from manuscript to mention that many of them will go on to lection of twenty-three articles (plus preface print to electronic, from scroll to codex to e- careers in which understanding of past and by Terry Belanger, editor’s introduction, and book, from Shakespearean quarto to nine- present practice inform their own daily afterword by Daniel Traister) serves not so teenth-century gift book to popular magazine endeavors. much as a comprehensive pedagogical guide to the Harry Potter phenomenon. In genre One such topic – the practice of editing – as an eclectic and thought-provoking conver- and period the articles embrace poetry, drama, is compellingly treated here in contributions sation. fiction, and nonfiction, ranging from medi- by Sean C. Grass, Jennifer Phegley, and Tatjana Such conversation has long been needed eval manuscripts through the present (and list- Taksevka, and most usefully by Erick in a format more widely accessible than the ing to the Victorian side, perhaps reflecting Kelemen, whose students actually created sessions and supper-tables of SHARP con- the editor’s own specialization). In most cases their own edition of a Renaissance play. An ferences. It’s no secret that book history (as the writers presume the reader’s basic com- effective pedagogy for current-day editing one possible shorthand term) is being inte- mon knowledge and drill right into pedagogy; would teach one of the most valuable les- grated into the curriculum in literature, writ- a few, such as Thomas Kinsella and Willman sons in all literary production: that it is not ing, history, library science, and the fine arts Spawn’s contribution on colonial Philadelphia only the writers or processes of the past that even while the focused bibliography courses bookbindings, Timothy Barrett’s on were vulnerable to error. In this respect the of yesteryear are harder to come by. But just papermaking, and R. Carter Hailey’s on identi- collection can also serve as exemplar. A laser- exactly how instructors are going about it, how fication of antique laid paper, summarize a printed short-run edition, it displays spelling they assess results, and how they manage re- challenging topic or technique and then show errors that include “Paul Lawrence Dunbar” sources might be something of a mystery, how the approach may be instructive in class- and “Edgar Allen Poe” (occurrences readily especially to newcomers. If book history is to room settings. Barrett’s article, for instance, pro- found through the index), the “Schomberg” live up to its ambitious promise, it must de- vides a recipe and instructions for papermaking Center for Research in Black Culture (115), velop a formalized, or at least articulated, sys- that even novices can follow. The articles are “partronym” (130), and “a course laid cover- tem of teaching practices, no less than com- helpfully supplemented with a back-of-book ing” that surely should be “coarse” (146); in- position and rhetoric, traditional criticism, resource list that extends to online aids, and consistencies of capitalization that cannot be historiography, or emergent literary theory sources for equipment and tools. wholly ascribed to differences in American and have done. And it must, as Traister reminds As with any collected volume constrained British practice; bibliographical citations that readers of this volume, pay its way by more by tight limits of space and time, some im- sometimes lack punctuation or are otherwise convincing arguments than its own self-per- portant areas get little attention. How, for in- sloppily styled; and a table of contents in petuation. stance, can bibliography can shed light on lit- which only the final section bears chapter The contributors to Teaching Bibliography erary works created in the less distant past, or numbers. Luckily these are easily remedied via offer nuts-and-bolts experiences and exercises on current events and social trends? Erik twenty-first-century stop-press corrections. that can be adapted to situations ranging from Delfino creatively suggests the “Gutenberg Except where contributors discuss the undergraduate non-majors to nontraditional gambit” as a way of helping today’s library Eastern origins of paper or guide students in students pursuing a professional degree; from students draw analogies from historical print locating non-English-language editions in the bibliographical riches of New York City to issues of access, intellectual property, pres- their bibliographical research, the volume is to locales that, at first, appear book-deficient. ervation, and more in the digital age. Ques- anglocentric, drawing from American and The common denominators are the use of tions of intentionality, social production, semi- British university experience and primarily material books (or their components) to em- otics, publishing economics – to cite a few ex- dealing with the works of white canonical power non-material (historical, social, creative) amples – are equally applicable, if less readily writers. D. W. Krummel, writing on “The learning, and the recognition that a historical detectable from evidence, in today’s books, and Hidden Lives of Books,” is only one of the approach to books and texts yields a deeper the conversation should be extended further contributors to note the difficulties in expand- understanding of meaning. And they offer, in that direction. ing bibliographical assignments beyond com- as well, an exciting sampling of student re- More could be done, as well, in the areas of monly accessible resources. sponses: “Word-of-mouth about this particu- publishing practice and the booktrade. Effec- ... /16
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It was not, of course, the intent of this tive Text’ looks at how “the tracts display a topics, but because it only identifies certain short volume to impart the last word on the sophisticated awareness of the many ways in topics, directs the reader, offering a selective subject: it serves instead as a useful starting which a book may signify” (82), and further- epitome of the book” (66). point. Taken together, its scattered and lively more, how “the tracts attempt to forge a col- Yet I also have a few cavils. Lander’s sug- approaches reflect the state of the lective identity through polemical engagement gestion at the end of his otherwise exemplary interdiscipline. Instructors should find rich with both the bishops and the puritans” (83). chapter on Hamlet that – “Q2’s anti-polemic opportunities to extrapolate these approaches Chapter 3, ‘“Whole Hamlets”: Q1, Q2, and anticipates the establishment of the category to their particular situations, develop their the Work of Distinction,’ probably the best of literature – a category in large part consti- teaching more inventively, and share their ideas chapter in the book, revisits the question of tuted through the repudiation of polemic” more systematically. the “bad quarto” (Q1) and the “good quarto” (144) seems to me unnecessary and uncon- The leading bibliographers, textual critics, (Q2). Lander notes that while “Q1 comfort- vincing. And while I can understand the temp- historians, and print practitioners of the twen- ably inhabits the popular tradition of the re- tation to quote Foucault on authorship in the tieth century had the good fortune to build venge play, Q2 is pervaded by a sense of un- chapter on the Marprelate tracts, his assertion their fundamental skills by way of dedicated certainty that coalesces around the problem that “Texts, books, and discourses began to apprenticeships, and they formulated their of the popular itself ” (111). The next two have authors . . . to the extent that discourses classroom approaches in an environment chapters, as Lander writes, focus “more atten- could be transgressive” (81) also seems his- where the primacy of the printed word was tion on the figure of the author” (144), in torically inaccurate, which brings me to my seldom challenged. Scholars and librarians particular, on John Donne and John Milton. most serious criticism: the exclusion of the going forward must find ways to incorporate In Chapter 4, ‘Printing Donne: Poetry and Henrician era from Lander’s consideration. book-historical concepts and skills more Polemic in the Early Seventeenth Century,’ Against Foucault’s formulation I would put democratically. Teaching Bibliography sets us on Lander brings together Pseudo-Martyr and An Thomas More’s marvelously ludic construc- that road. Anatomy of the World to demonstrate “the tion of the author in Utopia, Erasmus’s as- Barbara A. Brannon cultural affinity between poetry and polemic, siduous attention to his “textual self-presen- University of North Carolina, Wilmington to the ways in which both endeavors are ani- tation,” in Lisa Jardine’s term from her mated by similar concerns” (145). Chapter 5, Erasmus, Man of Letters, and Henry VIII’s ‘au- F ‘Areopagitica and “the true warfaring Chris- thorship’ of a polemical book defending the tian,”’ analyzes Milton’s polemic not as an ex- seven sacraments. Jesse M. Lander, Inventing Polemic: Religion, ample of the “shaping influence of print tech- But these criticisms pale against the larger Print, and Literature Culture in Early Modern nology and religious controversy” (145), but achievement of this book. Or rather, by omit- England. Cambridge: Cambridge University of the way Milton’s text figures the end of this ting these issues, Lander points the way for Press, 2006. x. 324p. ill. ISBN 0521838541. tradition, coming as it does “at the end of the further scholarship that will be informed by $85.00. wars of truth that followed the Reformation” his work. Lander’s Inventing Polemic asks us to (180). Milton’s pamphlet, Lander cleverly reconsider issues we thought settled, and dem- Possibly the most interesting, and certainly notes, is far more than a polemic: it is a po- onstrates the unsuspected importance of sup- the most productive, development in recent lemic for polemic” (181). The book concludes posedly minor details. I hope that Cambridge literary criticism has been the creation of a niche with a chapter on ‘Institutionalizing Polemic: University Press will consider bringing this that David Kastan and Peter Stallybrass in The Rise and Fall of Chelsea College,’ an in- book out in paperback so that it can reach the Opening the Border: Inclusivity in Early Modern stitution “dedicated to the pursuit of contro- wide audience it deserves. Studies: Essays in Honor of James V. Mirollo versial divinity” (201). puckishly call “The New Boredom” (212); Overall, this is an absolutely wonderful Peter C. Herman that is, bringing together the seemingly tedi- book, original, detailed, and deeply insight- San Diego State University ous details of textual studies with the cultural ful. Lander’s attention to how the material or concerns of the New Historicism. There have the ostensibly supplemental details of book F been many distinguished contributions to this production underscore the meaning of a text field, such as David Kastan’s Shakespeare and is nothing less then revelatory. His analysis of Eugene D. LeMire, A Bibliography of William the Book and Leah S. Marcus’s Unediting the the indexes for the various editions of Foxe’s Morris. New Castle, Delaware and London: Oak Renaissance, and to this list one can happily add Actes and Monuments is a perfect example of Knoll and the British Library, 2006. 448p. ISBN Jesse Lander’s excellent Inventing Polemic: Reli- this book’s interpretive gems: “The index is 9781584561736. $98.00. gion, Print, and Literature Culture in Early Mod- designed to guide readers to a proper under- ern England. standing of the history and, perhaps more From the direct, thoughtful, engaging pho- The first three chapters, however, focus importantly, the historical significance of the tograph of William Morris on the dust jacket more on the mechanics of the book trade. primitive church. Since a particular index lays a to the fulsome bibliographical descriptions, Chapter one, ‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: Print- grid over the main text and isolates a specific Eugene’s LeMire’s magisterial book delivers ing and Popularizing the Actes and Monu- set of elements as potential important or use- important information to twenty-first century ments,’ examines the process by which this ful, the index in effect offers a reading of the readers. In his poetry, prose and visual arts, huge book, marked by “its adversarial polemic main text it claims only to reference. An index William Morris (1834 – 1896) asks fundamen- . . . became institutionalized” (57). The sec- thus works at cross purposes: it opens the tal questions about how we live our lives. ond chapter, ‘Martin Marprelate and the Fugi- book, providing convenient access to certain Morris speaks to advocates of mutual respect https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 16 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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and world peace as well as to ecologists con- On the next page LeMire illustrates Morris’s with a political agenda and considerable expe- cerned with reducing environmental degrada- use of his 1876 Honeysuckle chintz for the rience and expertise in positioning her work tion. ‘Superior’ binding of The Roots of the Moun- for sale. Other twentieth-century scholars, notably tains. Morris’s letters further enhance this en- This collection includes eleven essays, rang- William Peterson, Gary Aho, and David and try. On 17 October 1889, Morris told his daugh- ing from bibliographical to literary interpreta- Sheila Latham, have published specialized bib- ter Jenny “I have a dummy book bound up in tions. Amongst the most interesting are the liographies of aspects of Morris’s writings, our chintz. It looks so nice and such fun” (Let- four that approach the text from a biblio- but LeMire began research for this bibliogra- ters, iii.81). LeMire continues tracing Morris’s graphical angle. Alexander Pettit warns against phy in 1989 with the intention of updating, pleasure with the Roots of the Mountains, quot- misinterpreting Haywood’s periodical simply expanding, and correcting the two previously ing a letter to Georgiana Burne-Jones dated because it has been recontextualized in a rev- unsurpassed nineteenth-century primary bib- 16 November 1889: “I am so pleased with my erential, scholarly edition. In counterpoint, liographies, by Forman and Scott (1897). Al- book – typography, binding, and I must say Janine Barchas argues in her examination of though his home university is in Australia, literary matter – that I am any day to be seen the original illustrations of the work that their LeMire traveled worldwide to study the hugging it up, and am become a spectacle to very banality yields significant meanings, twin- William Morris holdings in fifty-two libraries Gods and men because of it” (Letters, iii. 120). ning ‘sibyls and sybarites’ in a visual and ver- and seven private collections. In his introduc- Thus LeMire’s citations concerning this book bal play. Her essay suggests intriguingly that tion LeMire defines his chronological bounda- bring Morris to life and serve as prescient no- the apparently ‘hackneyed’ frontispieces of ries as 1856 to 1915, except that later publica- tice of Morris’s interest in printing and the eighteenth-century works reward careful scru- tions of first editions are also included. List- book arts fulfilled at his Kelmscott Press in tiny, and thus that contemporary audiences ing only works created for the public, LeMire the eighteen-nineties. General readers, schol- were far more attuned to reading images than refers readers to others bibliographies of ars, and artists will all benefit from Eugene we have realized (70). Patrick Spedding and Morris manuscript sources, and secondary lit- LeMire’s decades of rigorous research shared Donald J. Newman conclude the volume erature at the end of the introduction. in A Bibliography of William Morris. with essays respectively estimating the suc- New information brought forward in cess of The Female Spectator – substantial in LeMire’s introduction sets the historical con- Alice Beckwith her own terms, less impressive compared with text of Morris’s writings and unravels the Providence College that of her model – and supplying a thor- complex web of Morris’s relationships with ough, if not entirely complete, bibliographi- his publishers, while elucidating the impact F cal history of the work. These four essays of English and American copyright regula- frame and set the context for the remainder tions on the works. LeMire describes ways the Donald J. Newman and Lynn Marie Wright, of the volume, which largely concerns interest of later publishers and printers in eds., Fair Philosopher: Eliza Haywood and ‘The Haywood’s ideology. Morris’s Kelmscott Press books contributed Female Spectator.’ Lewisburg: Bucknell Univer- One of the most contentious issues in to the twentieth-century revolution in type and sity Press, 2006. 252p. ill. ISBN 0838756360. criticism of Haywood concerns her political book design, resulting in books that “have a $48.50. intentions and the effects of her aesthetic clarity and beauty that enhances their use” choices, and the essays here represent a diver- (xlvii). The introduction is followed by five Eliza Haywood, possibly the most prolific sity of opinions. Although The Female Specta- chapters and two appendices: A) Original author in the eighteenth century, is known for tor alludes to Addison and Steele’s periodical Editions with Posthumous Editions to 1915 her amorous fiction rather than her journal- by its title, the work actually consists of a se- and First Editions to the Present; B) Morris’s ism, but, as this volume attests, her periodical ries of mini-novelistic essays illustrating moral Contributions to Books; C) Morris Collec- The Female Spectator is now attracting consider- points for women. In exploring this generic tions and Selections; D) Morris in Periodical able critical attention. To some extent, this re- ambiguity in the context of the work’s ex- Publications; E) Forgeries, Piracies and sults from the recent Pickering and Chatto plicit appeal to a female audience, Ricardo Sophistications; Appendix I: Interviews; Ap- edition of the work, co-edited by Alexander Miguel-Alfonso finds the periodical similar pendix II: Ephemera. A useful index con- Pettit and Kathryn King, both contributors to The Spectator in using aesthetic principles cludes the volume. My only correction con- to this collection, and part of the publication of taste to enforce a highly conservative moral cerns the Acknowledgements where “Mark of Haywood’s entire opus. The editors of Fair agenda in which women should “repress their Francis Lasner” should be listed as Mark Philosopher, Donald J. Newman and Lynn Marie individuality and behave as they are expected Samuels Lasner. Knight, outline in their comprehensive intro- to” (80). Eve Tavor Bannet, in contrast, inter- The main matter of the bibliography, en- duction the central critical and bibliographical prets Haywood’s work as a “cocktail of patri- riched by illustrations, includes references to issues of this work: sections survey the mod- otic, conservative, and radical elements” in Norman Kelvin’s editions of Morris’s letters, ern critical debates about Haywood’s formal which Haywood endorses distinctions of when such elaboration clarifies understand- originality, marketing strategies, and social at- rank while both commending women’s “vir- ing. For example, LeMire’s entry A-48.01 (133- titudes; the contemporary context of periodi- tue” and yet insisting on their “masculine learn- 134) concerning the 1889 publication of The cal publication; questions of Haywood’s femi- ing” (101). In a particularly powerful essay, Roots of the Mountains, pictures the title page nism; and the relationship of the work to Kathryn King refutes the view first articulated of the first ‘Superior’ edition showing Mor- Haywood’s more clearly political fiction. Over- by John Richetti that Haywood neglects poli- ris’s lyric epigraph suggesting his intention to all, the Haywood who emerges is a profes- tics for sensationalism, and instead argues for immerse hurried urban readers in rustic peace. sional, committed, complex, and savvy writer a political reading of Haywood’s work as an ... / 18
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... / 17 assertion of her patriotism in the politically contributors more lucidly. Nonetheless, as the Kipling from the manuscript “on the grounds fraught period of the ‘broad bottom’ minis- editors observe, The Female Spectator has been that the impression was not to be created that try. In a thoughtful essay combining inexplicably neglected, and this fine volume is I was in any way inspired by Kipling” (97). deconstructionist and feminist theory with a great stride forward in remedying that. And the North American publisher of political contextualization and close reading, Markandaya’s Two Virgins (1974) removed the Earla A. Wilputte goes still further to argue Barbara M. Benedict tilak marks from the foreheads of the Hindu that Haywood exposes the “paranoia of the Trinity College, Hartford girls on the novel’s cover, in order “to fore- government” by an ironic uses of silences and ground the timeless, universal aspects of the absences, including her announcements that F story” and “to prevent the Indian locale from she will not publish certain correspondences adversely affecting sales” (150). (122). Catherine Ingrassia develops this no- However, Ranasinha’s attention to the tion further by underscoring the oral contexts Ruvani Ranasinha. South Asian Writers in Twen- changing dynamics of publishing and recep- of Haywood’s work, both her fiction and her tieth-Century Britain: Culture in Translation. tion over the course of the twentieth century periodical: her examination of the writing as a Oxford English Monographs series. Oxford: does help clarify how and why South Asian conversation or dialogue provides a fascinat- Clarendon Press, 2007. x, 302p. ISBN writers have been able to move from a condi- ing perspective on Haywood’s notorious am- 9780199207770. £53.00; US$99.00. tion of being perceived as ‘orientalized’ Oth- biguity, and reaches further to problematize ers to being much more organically central to the very nature of eighteenth-century prose. Ranasinha’s study, based on her doctoral the rich world of Anglophone culture. The Nicola Graves argues, more conventionally, dissertation, traces the publication and recep- last two chapters, on Dhondy and Rushdie that Haywood “offers women’s education tion history of twentieth-century South Asian and on Kureishi and Syal, are especially inter- rather than women’s revenge as the key to Anglophone writing in Britain. Authors cov- esting – and heartening – as they chart the improving” their status, a view fundamen- ered in detail include Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. ways in which publishers, critics, and ordinary tally endorsed by Juliette Merritt’s exploration Narayan, Raja Rao, Nirad Chaudhuri, M. J. readers increasingly seem to focus on the in- of Haywood’s appeal to women’s reason (173). Tambimuttu, Kamala Markandaya, trinsic aesthetic satisfactions of the cultural This is a very welcome volume of essays Ambalavener Sivanandan, Farrukh Dhondy, productions, rather than on their perceived of almost uniformly high quality. The Intro- Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, and Meera (exotic) origins. For example, Ranasinha notes duction is pleasantly accessible, providing a Syal, although many other writers with ori- that Syal’s acknowledged influences include good survey of contemporary and historical gins in or ties to the countries and cultures of Dickens, Austen, Alan Bennett, Harper Lee, perspectives on Haywood’s journalism, and the Subcontinent are also discussed. Taking a Woody Allen, Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and the bibliographical essay by Newman is espe- roughly chronological approach, Ranasinha Alice Walker, thus “confirming the cross-cul- cially welcome. Many of the essays address examines how these writers’ works reflect “the tural nature of models of cultural identity that the ways in which Haywood’s audiences read changing assumptions that frame the transla- cannot be located in relation to origin and des- the periodical, its conventions, and its tion of non-Western cultures into what is tination alone” (232). As Ranasinha puts it, paratexts; these offer highly suggestive perceived as mainstream, metropolitan culture the more contemporary works are “not neces- insights into reading history. There is, how- and the dominant code of English” (5), and sarily ‘Asian’” in their orientation and out- ever, relatively little contextualization in terms specifically how South Asian writers have look, and the writers “justifiably resent” be- of contemporary literature – only four refer- moved from the margins to the center of Brit- ing put into ethnic and cultural boxes: “Like ences to Daniel Defoe, for example – and very ish cultural production, not just in literature, their forerunners they wish to transcend race, little reference indeed to print history, al- but also in television and film. religion, class, and culture and tell ‘universal’ though these topics surface briefly in some The book’s primary readers are likely to be stories, an aspiration that is no longer syn- essays. In addition, since the editors rely heav- those who are interested in the particular writ- onymous with ‘white,’ thanks in great meas- ily in this Introduction on the critical perspec- ers under discussion, or in the role of South ure to their predecessors” (265). tives offered by Helene Koon’s seminal 1978 Asian writing within postcolonial literature article “Eliza Haywood and The Female Specta- more broadly. Although the Introduction and Solveig Robinson tor” and Kathryn Shevelow’s book on gender promotional materials highlight Ranasinha’s Pacific Lutheran University construction in the early periodical, it would use of original archival material, including read- have been helpful for readers to have a thor- ers’ reports and the earlier authors’ correspond- F ough summary of these works included in ence with their publishers (the later writers’ the Introduction, rather than solely in the bib- letters either have not been archived or are re- liographical essay. Moreover, since the ques- stricted by copyright laws), the references to Thierry Rigogne, Between state and market: print- tions of Haywood’s aesthetic self-conscious- this material rarely reveal new insights into ing and bookselling in eighteenth-century France. ness, originality, manipulation of literary con- the authors’ publication and reception histo- Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2007 (SVEC ventions, and political ambiguity run consist- ries. At best (or worst), they confirm the diffi- 2007: 05). xvii, 313p. ISBN 9780729409070, ently throughout the essays, the Introduction culties faced by all writers who are perceived as £65, euro 100, $125. – if addressed to a general reader of eight- minor or marginalized. For example, in 1964 eenth-century studies – might usefully have Chaudhuri took his book The Continent of French-language books of the century be- made the connections between these issues Circe (1965) to Chatto and Windus, because fore the Revolution of 1789 continue to ex- clearer, and marshaled the arguments of the Macmillan’s reader wanted to cut references to cite the interest of historians and bibliogra- https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 18 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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phers. Thierry Rigogne’s monograph, which printed matter available in most parts of France comes with a laudatory foreword by Robert after 1750. It is a profusion one can still meas- IN MEMORIAM KAY AMERT Darnton, who rightly hails a “major contri- ure in a crudely impressionistic way by mov- bution,” is in essence a thorough examina- ing around the market for antiquarian and tion of the survey into the French provincial secondhand books in Paris and, to a lesser Kay Amert, emeritus professor in the Uni- printing and bookselling trades instigated in degree, in the provinces in 2008. versity of Iowa School of Journalism and 1764 by Antoine de Sartine, Malesherbes’s Unlike some of the eighteenth century’s Mass Communication, founding member of successor as directeur de la Librairie. The title other surveys, 1764 excluded Paris from its the UI Center for the Book in 1986, and direc- could be seen as misleadingly general, but the fact-gathering. Thus, although the capital and tor of the UI Typography Laboratory from author’s attention to the wider context – the its would-be monopolists are never absent 1971 until her retirement last year, died Friday, century’s other surveys from 1700 on, admin- from the dialogue, the emphasis falls on the 5 September 2008 at Mercy Hospital in Iowa istrative history and the extensive modern lit- printing and bookselling facilities of provin- City. erature on the trade in books in and around cial towns. Reports by agents of the central Kay was my teacher, mentor, and friend. I the French kingdom – justifies his claim to administration, local officials and guild mem- met her in 1997 as a UI Center for the Book have grappled with central problems. All in all bers contribute to a picture from which the student eager to enroll in her highly lauded it is a nice example of a clearly focused and views of participants are not missing. None- typography class. I made it into that course, disciplined study that opens up a much-de- theless, these are official documents with the and subsequently took every class she offered bated field for fresh scrutiny and that is not drawbacks that that status implies. Rigogne on typographic history and practice, signing afraid to state where new and further research knows and lists many of the modern accounts up as a graduate student under her guidance is needed. that attempt to go behind governmental and in the School of Journalism and Mass Com- Six tightly written and abundantly docu- police sources. Omissions like Françoise Weil’s munication. From Kay I learned both the mented chapters take the argument forward article “Une ‘secte’ de colporteurs venus du visual and historical aspects of typography – from the perceived need to seek information Dévoluy (1764–1780)” (Australian Journal of how to see fully a typeface and, understand- on the trade to an overview of its complexi- French Studies, XXXVII, 2000: 165–202) – rel- ing those letters, how to give life and shape to ties and incoherences in the decades immedi- evant to the discussion of Bernard and words and pages and books. Her archival work ately before the Revolution: ‘Surveying the Boisserand in Beaune (192) – are rare. But the with printing history records was extensive book trade’ (8–35); ‘Policing the book trade: fact remains that some critical questions are and she introduced students to works created the system and its failures’ (36–64); ‘Local ad- tantalizingly out of reach. The blanket claim by the printer/publishers who for centuries ministration: corporate bodies, urban insti- that we operate in “the absence of sales fig- led the way including one of particular inter- tutions and state agents’ (65–97)’ ‘The con- ures or production statistics” (127) is perhaps est to her, sixteenth-century French typogra- centration of printing’ (98–145); ‘Booksell- unduly sweeping or pessimistic. Doing better pher Simon de Colines. ers: the rise of the bookstore’ (146–183); and involves meticulous searching and sampling, By the time I was her student Kay was no ‘Print markets’ (184–218). something that was never part of this book’s longer teaching classes in the Typographic Although Rigogne’s thesis about the explicit business. Laboratory, the technology of digital fonts trade’s uneasy combination of a concentrated There is more work to do, not just “a his- having fully superseded hot metal type in jour- printing sector and a more freely expanding tory of the printed form” (21), as Rigogne nalism practice. But she generously became an market open to booksellers of different back- perceptively remarks, but also a full explora- informal advisor to me after a series of depar- grounds and ambitions is set out in a more tion of bankruptcies in the trade, of market- tures at the Center for the Book left me with- recent article (“Printers into Booksellers: The ing practices like subscriptions and retail dis- out a mentor and with the responsibility for Structural Transformation of the French Print counting and of advertising techniques and, producing a significant letterpress book. The Trades in the Age of Enlightenment,” The generally, calendars of the documentary sources technical expertise she shared during our con- Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, that are still accessible to us. Fortunately some versations is what made it possible for me to 101, 2007: 533–61), specialists cannot avoid of these things are happening, for example in complete the project. paying close attention to what is advanced – catalogues of booksellers’ catalogues and in There isn’t a day I teach that I don’t think with graphs and careful statistical tables – in the dictionaries of trade personnel being com- about Kay and her wisdom and generosity in the present book. Put simply, the authorities piled by Frédéric Barbier, Sabine Juratic and the classroom. She gently guided each student in Paris and locally did succeed, despite eva- their team. On that necessary way it is good to along in the typographic tradition they were sions, buck-passing and feigned ignorance, in have a solid and reliable signpost to the rich drawn to. It is impossible to travel from Iowa concentrating the number of printing-houses information contained in the 1764 survey. City into the greater book studies and print- operating in the provinces. On the other hand, ing history community without being asked and even after the introduction of brevets in Wallace Kirsop about Kay. In conversations with her former 1767, bookselling outlets of all kinds became Monash University students, far-flung colleagues, and those who more numerous and ultimately harder to con- knew her only by her work, I always feel privi- trol in the battle to suppress clandestine pub- leged anew to have been her student. lications, foreign reprints and home-grown piracies. A marked increase in population, Sara T. Sauers improved transport and communications and University of Iowa, Centre for the Book greater literacy all contributed to the mass of
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featured presentations on theoretical and ma- Claire Parfait (Université Paris 13) debated CONFERENCE REVIEWS terial concerns, followed by a stimulating de- “The Future(s) of the Book,” a topic which bate between book historians and textual sparked a lively debate. Warmest thanks and scholars, in parallel with an introduction to congratulations to the organisers, and early the Village du Livre at Fontenoy-la-Joûte, not warning to all SHARP members – the pub- Les Vies du Livre / The Lives far from Nancy itself. lished proceedings promise to be well worth of the Book The afternoon sessions focused on con- looking out for. Université Nancy 2, France temporary social, cultural, and economic is- Susan Pickford 20 – 21 June 2008 sues including copyright, foreign rights, and Université Paris 13 literary prizes, in parallel with a series of his- While France has a long and proud book torical case studies looking at related issues F history tradition, research has, perhaps under- such as the emergence of the fictional charac- standably, tended to be Franco-centric (with ter as a species of intellectual property and some honourable exceptions, such as Frédéric how twentieth-century American publishers Evidence of Reading, Barbier’s work on Germany). The English- presented Charles Chestnutt as an Afro- Reading the Evidence speaking world in particular has been some- American author. The first day concluded with London, England what sidelined in the French tradition, and two richly stimulating plenary talks by Barbara 21 – 23 July 2008 since the retirement of Marie-Françoise Cachin Bordalejo of the University of Birmingham, and the concomitant, and much regretted, presenting her department’s work on an elec- In July of 2008, the Open University and demise of the seminar Le Livre et l’Edition dans tronic edition of Chaucer, and Tony Lacey of the Institute of English Studies at University le Monde Anglophone at Université Paris 7, re- Penguin Books on his experiences as Pub- of London organized the conference, Evidence search activity in the field has been very much lishing Director at one of Britain’s leading of Reading, Reading the Evidence, in honor of splintered. The bilingual conference Les Vies publishers. The evening was rounded off to RED, The Reading Experience Database (1450- du Livre/Lives of the Book, held at the Université perfection with a reception at Nancy’s mag- 1945). Their call for papers on the history of Nancy 2 under the capable and efficient or- nificent town hall and (coincidentally, the or- reading brought together an extraordinary ganisation of Nathalie Collé-Bak, David Ten ganisers assured us) a splendid son et lumière number and variety of scholars. The result Eyck, and Monica Girard, thus provided a wel- display in the outstandingly beautiful eight- was a strong, highly focused collection of pa- come forum for both the anglophone book eenth-century central square, Place Stanislas, pers and panels and keynote speakers. I was history community in France and international deservedly listed as a UNESCO World Herit- delighted to be able to attend and extremely scholars from as far afield as Iran, South Af- age Site. grateful for the help provided by a graduate rica, and Australia, many of whom were then The second day’s programme proved student bursary from The Bibliographical able to continue their discussions at SHARP equally stimulating. The first two parallel ses- Society as well as a research travel grant from 2008 in Oxford the following week. sions focused on case studies of the publish- Stanford University’s Department of English. The call for papers was designed to attract ing histories of Ben Jonson and James The history of reading provides crucial a broad spectrum of contributions, both his- Thomson and on the significance of the pub- background for my dissertation, Distraction: torical and contemporary. Suggested topics lisher’s collection. This was followed by ses- Dramas of Attention in Eighteenth-Century Lit- included the historical evolution of the book, sions on book circulation and consumption erature, which offers a literary history of the the status of the book in contemporary cul- from the sixteenth century to the present day mental state in England, France, and America ture, the book and the text, the politics of and on new book practices such as between 1747 and 1818. Though my focus is book preservation, illustration and ornamen- bookcrossing, audio versions, and readers’ on the friction among Enlightenment theo- tation, and audiences. The range of papers blogs. ries of concentration and the formal changes and posters presented at the conference fully After lunch, keynote speaker Marie- distraction wrought in eighteenth-century fic- reflected this broad-based approach, provid- Françoise Cachin gave a wide-ranging, rich, tion, I am also working to develop a larger ing rich opportunities for cross-fertilisation and informative talk whose title, “Books are method for analyzing the changing historical between different research interests. The or- not absolutely dead things,” was drawn from relationship between characters’ and readers’ ganisers wisely chose to limit the number of Milton’s Areopagitica. The two final parallel imagined attention spans. Being able to hear parallel sessions to two at a time, so that al- sessions focused on books and art, with con- the latest scholarship on the history of read- though participants inevitably had to select tributions on artists’ books, books and archi- ing and to get feedback from those working from the interesting-looking titles on offer, tecture, and photography in books printed at in other periods was invaluable. by exchanging notes over coffee, one was able the turn of the twentieth century, and on My own interest in the history of atten- to get a fully rounded impression of the con- books and politics, looking at the role of radi- tion (and distracted reading practices) shaped ference as a whole. cal bookshops in twentieth-century Britain my experience of the conference. Kate Flint’s The conference began with parallel sessions and the curious publishing phenomenon of opening keynote on “Books in Photographs” on “Adapting the Book Form” and related the “political catechism” as a thermometer of and Leah Price’s concluding comments at the case studies, covering a variety of topics from France’s revolutionary fever throughout the roundtable were two personal highlights. Flint reworkings of Robinson Crusoe in the eight- nineteenth century. The conference concluded called our attention to the highly posed scenes eenth century to the role of screenwriters in with a round table at which Tony Lacey, Peter of reading we see in late nineteenth- and early the twenty-first. The second set of sessions Robinson (University of Birmingham) and twentieth-century photographs. She empha- https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 20 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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sized the difficulty of pinning down the evi- in Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility reminded There was anxiety and despair in some dence of a book having being read, and of a me of an important connection between nar- sessions of the excellent Evidence of Reading; reader’s level of engagement. Books appeared cissism and absorption in early nineteenth-cen- Reading the Evidence conference, but for me the in these images as objects of absorption, but tury novels. dominant emotion was excitement, as the also as stage props, as armrests, as art objects, The most valuable moments of the con- boundaries of what counts as reading, and as trash. Flint’s careful analysis of the evidence ference, for me, came out of the productive reading materials, expanded before my eyes. such scenes of reading provide brought out a interplay of themes and interests on our panel, There was anxiety at the imminent death few of the conference’s ongoing themes: the “Readers and Reviewers in the Eighteenth- of print culture, and despair at the solipsism importance of questioning and context- Century,” chaired by Bob Owens. Antonia of private reading experience. Anxiety over ualizing seemingly obvious evidence of read- Forster opened the session with a paper on the ephemerality and pastness of books came ing; the need to acknowledge the interplay be- images of novel reading in eighteenth-century through in the responses to Kate Flint’s visu- tween fictional representations of reading and reviews, arguing that eighteenth-century re- ally arresting presentation, “Books in Photo- our histories of it; and the importance of viewers portrayed themselves as fulfilling read- graphs,” suggesting that fear of loss is one theorizing book-use as well as book-reading. ers’ needs, and saw their role as that of direct- reason for the current interest in book his- Leah Price picked up on this last point at ing their audience’s attention to the best works tory. Yet while books became more transient, the end of the conference. She urged critics to of fiction. Forster argued that this attempt to newspapers became more enduring, read for consider more deeply the relationship between parse good works from bad often relied on decades or even centuries after publication, as the reading of books and other uses for them: categorizing, not books but readers into good Uriel Heyd showed, with evidence from in- sorting, storing, displaying, carrying. Price also and bad ‘types,’ including the “amorous dexing and binding, and the market in back raised important questions about online read- Reader,” “the hasty reader” and the “innocent issues of papers, including local papers. ing, pointing out that any history of reading reader.” This piece was followed by Kate The solipsism appeared in Jonathan must now also include analyses of virtual li- Loveman’s, who showed how an understand- Rose’s keynote lecture, “Altick’s Map: The braries, such as Google Library or Goodreads, ing of the coffeehouse tradition of jesting New Historiography of Reading,” in which as well as new evidence of online reading prac- undercuts traditional assumptions about he referred to Heather Jackson’s (2001) work tices, such as mouse-clicks, or eye-movement eighteenth-century readers’ absorption and cre- on marginalia, which found as many inter- tracking. Most importantly for me, Price and dulity, and revealed how this changes our in- pretations as readers of Boswell’s Life of Flint both broke with the traditional assump- terpretation of reader-reception for works by Johnson. Some of the responses to Rose’s lec- tion that looking at a book means paying at- Defoe, like Robinson Crusoe. I concluded the ture, which called on historians of reading to tention to it – one of the hardest myths about panel with new work on selective attention start building some theories from their evi- absorption my own work on distraction fights and the eighteenth-century reader. Looking at dence, were that the unreachably private na- against. Samuel Johnson’s periodical essays The Ram- ture of reading meant that any attempt to Throughout the conference, I attended bler (1750-52) and The Idler (1758-60), I argued reconstruct that experience must end before panels and papers that seemed most relevant that one of his, and other, essayists’ main goals it has begun. to my dissertation work. This includes a chap- was to keep readers from being overwhelmed But many conference papers confirmed ter, for example, on divided attention in Jane by the volume of options in eighteenth-cen- that those myriad interpretations are actually Austen’s novels (suggesting that she grants tury print culture. Johnson, I suggested, hoped the starting point: they confirm the complex more psychological richness to characters who to teach his readers strategies to economize nature of reading, and the agency of the can multi-task while reading); another is on their time and focus, and embedded lessons reader. However, the interpretations are still sustained attention in Clarissa, (arguing that in his essays to develop their skills of selective amenable to generalisation and theory-build- Richardson’s plot structure relies on a compe- attention. ing. More importantly, marginalia are only one tition between religious concentration and The excellent questions and suggestions I form of evidence. As David Vincent illustrated secular distraction). Because of this, Mary received from the audience and the general in- with the multimedia reception of Dickens in Brook’s discussion of women’s multitasking tellectual vibrancy of the conference gave me figurines, dramatisations and episodes he – or, more specifically, reading while embroi- renewed energy to finish another chapter of never wrote, “recapturing the reading experi- dering – in early modern England was espe- my dissertation, as well as my second article ence requires much more than just reading.” cially interesting for my work on Austen. Hear- on distracted reading practices. I came to this Simon Frost confirmed this with his exam- ing Rosemary Dixon’s talk on reading lists for conference with a general interest in attention ples of George Eliot bicycles and sauce bot- the study of divinity in the eighteenth century and the eighteenth-century reader. I left with tles, as evidence of reader reception and com- gave me an entirely new way to open my dis- new critical frameworks, source materials, and modity culture. cussion of Clarissa. Tuesday’s highlight was strategies for approaching scholarly work on Evidence of all sorts was the theme of Matthew Grenby’s discussion of eighteenth- the history of reading. It couldn’t have been this three-day conference, which set out to century children’s reading practices, a historical more valuable. bring “as many diverse approaches as possi- topic especially fascinating as an early site for ble … into energetic debate,” to enable “the training readerly attention. Wednesday Natalie Phillips study of the history of reading to progress brought a lively presentation by Barbara Stanford University beyond the boundaries of specific institutions, Benedict on ‘ways of reading’ in Jane Austen. disciplines, methodologies, geographical lo- Her discussion of Captain Benwick and cations and time periods.” Marianne Dashwood’s self-centered reading ... / 22
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It did what it set out to do, with literary to reconstruct the reading culture of a poor histories, papers are sought which emphasize and historical approaches mingling in many Irish farming family and the wider print cul- spatial and temporal connections between dif- panels, forcing us to hear the other point of ture of which they were part. ferent elements and events, examine ideas of view, even if we didn’t always understand it. A session on the new version of the Read- repetition and duration, and highlight the Literary theory had a rough ride, particularly in ing Experience Database, the inspiration for this importance of geographical, social and per- Rose’s keynote lecture, and the public sphere timely and well-run conference, suggested that formative landscapes as interactive. We thus was only maintained by Leah Price’s spirited the number of entries has indeed reached a aim to bring together academics from a range defence during questions. Throughout the critical mass. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the of disciplines who are interested in the mak- conference, a tension was visible, between the papers based on RED research, nor on digi- ing/writing of theatre and performance his- attractions of a well-loved or well-known sin- tised texts, although there were two such pan- tories and cultural geographies, as well as the gle text, and the unpredictable, messy pro- els on the conference programme. potential of historical GIS in analyzing spa- miscuity of historical readers. Was anything missing? More work on read- tial-temporal patterns within a community, For me the most exciting papers were those ing in public libraries, the influence of Bible- and to address the potentials and problems at the empirical end of the spectrum (my com- reading practices, and reading and identity, in turning to maps rather than narratives in fort zone), where straightforward historical would have been helpful. On the latter, Ilona the making of histories. spadework dug up evidence that flew in the Dobosiewicz and Liliana Piasecka gave a mov- Examples of potential areas for proposals face of established theory. Take Mike Esbester’s ing paper on nineteenth-century Silesian re- might include: Maps and performance; study of one journey by Victorian public trans- sistance, through the teaching of Polish lit- Landscapes of performance; Spatial histories port, as revealed in the annotations of a quin- eracy, to the imposition of the German lan- of performance; Performance and site; tessentially Victorian text, a railway timetable. guage. This paper also revealed how reading Repetition and duration in histories of per- This was a text ‘studied for action,’ read in a was entwined with regional as well as national formance; Techniques for representing patterns non-linear way, suggesting that Engelsing’s identities. As one grateful peasant wrote: in space and time; Capturing/representing his- theory of a shift in reading from intensive to “Now we know, and the children will know tories/historical mapping at a local scale; The extensive, public to private, applies only to a as well, who we are!” potential of digital cartography for cultural limited range of reading material. The pro- Historians of reading cannot be so em- geographies/cultural histories. motional posters and handbills of travelling phatic, as the miscellany of this conference re- Proposals for both papers and research showmen, part of a huge genre of printed vealed. I found that exciting, and I am not yet posters are welcomed. Deadline for abstracts ephemera studied by Sadiah Qureshi, raised concerned at the lack of theory that could ac- is 14 November 2008. Extended proposals similar questions, challenging me to imagine commodate railway timetables, George Eliot of 1,000 words should be addressed to the a more profuse reading world of the past. Is bicycles, and the Western canon. Conference organisers:Dr Jo Robinson, School there anything that can’t be read, I wondered. of English Studies, University of Notting- I was reminded of The Two Ronnies TV com- Andrew Hobbs ham
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eties; networks of influence; Transatlantic and Johnson and Gender (Isobel Grundy tures, media, and book history are welcome. transnational networks; family and kinship
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Please send a one-page proposal and two- ies of specific objects are particularly encour- In certain cases the archives are complemented page resume to Georgia B. Barnhill aged, as are those which take into account by collections of publishers’ imprints. These
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ers’ and Christian Benne’s paper on the book print culture in a meaningful way? How do SHARP COPENHAGEN history of Ossian. I was fascinated to hear we unite individual studies of great depth about the construction of a papermaking town with the wider historical questions and issues? Published Words Public Pages: constructed upon nineteenth-century paternal- How do we take proper account of the istic models in mid-twentieth-century New transnational or international qualities of A Nordic Conference of Zealand, in Sydney Shep and David both books and readers, while at the same International Print Culture Finkelstein’s joint presentation about the time maintaining a focus on the different so- Kinleith Paper Mill. I also learned much from cial, cultural and political conditions that per- Royal School of Library and Information Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen’s paper on Hans tain in different nations and at different times? Science, Copenhagen, Denmark Christian Andersen’s tales. No doubt these questions will continue to 10 – 12 September 2008 David Finkelstein chaired an engaging panel preoccupy me, and other delegates, for some on “Enlightenment Publics,” in which Tue time to come. The aim of the SHARP focus conference Andersen Nexø’s paper about the Spectator and These were some of the intellectual pleas- in Copenhagen was to gather together current public polemics sparked useful discussion ures of the conference, but more material research into print culture – book history, read- about the limitations of Habermas’s concep- delights were also available. The catering ing, textual studies, sociology of literature, li- tion of the public sphere in relation to eight- throughout was first-rate, as was the welcome brary studies, literature and media studies – eenth-century readerships. I also very much reception at the Royal Library’s beautiful Black undertaken in the Nordic and Baltic Sea re- enjoyed Minna Ahokas’ paper which presented Diamond building, and the conference ban- gions and elsewhere. The conference had an case studies of four Finnish readers of the quet in the Anarchist Free State of Christiania international and interdisciplinary focus, re- Enlightenment, relating their reading experi- was extremely memorable. The quality of the flected in the wide range of nationalities rep- ences to previous assumptions about the food at the Spiseloppen Restaurant was truly resented by the delegates, who hailed not only spread of Enlightenment texts. In the panel excellent, and the company convivial and en- from the Nordic and Baltic Sea regions, but on professional and non-professional readers, tertaining. also from Japan, India, Canada, New Zealand, I found Maria Karlsson and Jenny Bergenmar’s Katie Halsey South Africa, Great Britain, Ireland and else- presentation of the letters from the public to Institute of English Studies, School of where. Selma Lagerlöf particularly helpful in thinking Advanced Study, University of London From the outset, it was evident that about the many motivations that may lead SHARP Copenhagen presented an opportu- readers to claim to have read a book; in the F nity for scholars working on similar types of case of the letters to Lagerlöf, for example, evidence in different countries to share experi- many members of the public wrote, declaring The title, Published Words – Public Pages, ences, research findings, and potential solu- that they had enjoyed her books, as a pream- turned my attention towards the underlying tions to methodological problems. For many ble to asking for financial assistance. I also par- leitmotive of the conference. Maybe I was sim- of these scholars, used to working in isola- ticipated in a panel designed to showcase re- ply open to notions of performance within tion in their own countries, it appeared to be search drawn from material in the Reading the realm of books. The major performance the first time that such discussions had been Experience Database, in which we were grateful of these three days in Copenhagen was the possible. This was a fascinating and valuable for a number of questions that helped to fo- brilliant and personal chairmanship executed aspect of the conference, made manifest to cus our minds on ways in which we can con- by Simon Frost. By his side he had a number me in the panel on “Reading Histories: Li- tinue to improve and expand the resource. of chairs of individual sessions who also braries, Societies and Auctions in Norway and The keynote addresses highlighted the wide performed on a high level. Denmark,” where the three panellists from range of subjects within print culture that the The theme of this conference pointed to Norway and Denmark found many fruitful conference had brought together, with William the fact that publishing and perception of areas of similarity in their research, and an St Clair focussing primarily on readers, Isabel words and pages might be analysed as multi- audience member from Finland also com- Hofmeyr on printing, and Hans Walter Gabler layered, performative aspects of a larger his- mented on the remarkable parallels between on editing. And the final plenary session on tory of books. Authorship and reading, sell- the three papers and work carried out by her- “Methods, Disciplines and Futures,” in which ing and reception of books are dynamic proc- self and colleagues in Finland. It is to be hoped Shafquat Towheed talked about the future of esses that turn texts into intellectual, eco- that the discussions begun at this conference the history of reading, Pamela Schultz Nybacka nomic, and aesthetic performances. The may continue and lead to further international discussed publishing, and Charles Lock gave a papers that were given during these three days cooperation in the field of book history. splendidly provocative paper on modern edit- to large extent laid emphasis on this circum- My path through the conference was dic- ing practices, again reminded us of the range stance; the speakers did their best to guide tated largely by my own interest in the history of work that falls under the rubric of book the rest of us through worlds of letters and of reading, although I also found myself in a history and/or print culture. pictures. number of panels that did not deal with this The conference posed a number of ques- The performance of words and books in subject but were nonetheless thought-provok- tions to me, related to this disciplinary breadth the physical world is a traditional field of re- ing. I enjoyed, for example, the stimulating and inclusivity: firstly, and most obviously, search in book history, including printing, discussion about the difficulties of editing what is book history, and where is the disci- publishing and selling, as well as the outer aural texts that followed Klaus Nielsen’s pa- pline going? Secondly, how do we relate the appearance of books in general (paper 30a). per on ‘Radio Literature and Listening Read- micro- and macro- aspects of book history or This theme was well covered in Copenhagen ... / 24
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by a large variety of papers. A number of pres- Greenland (sessions 12, 18 & 28). These ses- Clair’s, including a comprehensive Northern entations dealed with audiovisual and virtual sions were among those oriented primarily European view of the political, economical, aspects of texts and books. One paper com- towards Northern Europe, while at the same technical and cultural transnational forces that bined textual scholarship with a multimedial time being in line with ambitious international formed the modern European culture (see for approach to questions of priority of radio- research. Charlotte Appel did a great job in example, Donald Sassoon’s The Culture of the broadcasted texts over the publication in print, introducing and binding together all three ses- Europeans, or the papers presented at the an interesting point even from a bibliographi- sions. The themes of the papers covered a “Transnational Histories of the Book” work- cal point of view (paper 3b). At the same wide field of research, from the social mean- shop at The University of Edinburgh on 30 time it showed the need for investigations of ing of different forms of performances of May 2008). orality in the final version of the printed book. religious texts and hymns (many texts were All in all, I enjoyed the conference very Online worlds are virtual performances of real heard before they were read) to bio-biblio- much. I only wished Simon would have able life, just more perfect and more attractive. The graphical questions regarding book collec- to announce the next conference. Who will performative qualities of books in worlds such tions, writing and publishing. Although im- take up the baton next? as Second Life are often reduced to graphical pressive as such, this research complex seems elements and representations of links to full- yet in search of a comprehensive Scandinavian Wolfgang Undorf texts (paper 5c). They are graphical elements form. Then it will, without doubt, emerge as National Library of Sweden, Stockholm interwtined with literature and art, a major Scandinavian contribution to interna- perfomances of defined and finite places rather tional research in European book culture. F than infinite space. The multimediality of the In some way or another, this core theme online medium includes large amounts of was accompanied and backed-up by another, pictorality, reappearing in literature today. An- yet less obvious theme that for some years In the SHARP Copenhagen panel “Jour- other aspect of assumedly pre-print mediality, has been at the heart of Northern European nals and Politics,” Jean-Charles Buttier orality, experiences a renaissance today. Mod- book history research. The conference offered (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and ern massmedia, such as radio and tv soaps, some very strong performances of current re- Bibliothèque Nationale de France) presented depends heavily on oral structures. However, search in the book cultures of the Northern his extensive comparative and quantitative its origins can be traced back to nineteenth- European Enlightenment period. Interest- analysis of the various formats of nineteenth- century print-related publishing formats, such ingly, a majority of the papers that can be put century political catechisms. Buttier’s corpus as the Victorian serial (paper 8c). together under this heading covered intellec- of 716 catechisms convincingly showed the Most papers, though, presented different tual and cultural developments in the realm formal stability of the genre and the extent to aspects of the social performances of texts. of Scandinavian countries who didn’t gained which their publication history has followed The diverging receptions of texts occupy liter- political independence until one century later: the historical and political developments of ary scholars and book historians alike. It was Greenland (paper 12c), Norway (papers 18b, the century, especially in the context of the very interesting to follow the interlinked per- 24a & c, 28b) and Finland (paper 15c). Even French Revolutions, thereby creating a mate- formative aspects of public reading and de- the religious reading complex touched the rial and textual format for a political memory. bates around the poems ascribed to the blind Enlightenment theme, for example papers 18c Aina Nøding (University of Oslo) discussed celtic bard Ossian (3a). While the English pub- and 28a, covering Swedish book history. the place of translated literature in late-eight- lic discussed the authenticity of the songs, the Lastly, there were several papers at least ap- eenth-century Norwegian newspapers, the so- German readers and critics focused on a mod- proaching the ‘new’(?) theme of transnational called ‘intelligencers’ (adresseaviser). Although ern notion of oral tradition revitalizing his- book history, superbly introduced by William these publications were mainly concerned with torical fragments. Several papers investigated St Clair in his keynote on the first evening. bringing advertisements and official an- the recycling of the nineteenth-century illus- The physical transmission of untranslated nouncements (the publication of news was trated press. The cultural, pictorial, ideological pictures on an international level (papers 8a & not allowed), Nøding’s extensive research into and aesthetic performance of pictures became c) or the influence of developments abroad the archive of these periodicals underlined an international business. The trade with on exterior attributes of books were well dealt their importance for an understanding of the metal casts from England to Europe was fol- with (papers 2c). There were also papers on history of reading in Norway, and the lowed up by the export of concepts of ‘exile’ printing, if one may use this term in a intelligencers’ role in making world literature periodicals (paper 8a). Prolific writers such as much broader sense including printing of available to a wider public. Both papers Hans Christian Andersen created new objects runes in Britain (paper 1a) and of Lithuanian showed that, however ephemeral these cat- out of an array of commercial illustrations, texts in Paris (paper 4a) as well as a few views echisms and intelligencers might seem, they from scrapbooks to illustrated novels (paper of contemporary transnationalism around the nevertheless formed stable intertextual net- 8b). world (papers 17b and Isabel Hofmeyr’s key- works for circulating textual material across There was also a special focus on the per- note). Several of the papers included infor- temporal and geographical gaps. formance texts representing the silent mation pointing at a transnational direction, bestsellers, religious texts. Three interlinked such as the investigations of reading cultures Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen sessions presented eight papers dealing with and book collections in Norway and Denmark Department of Scandinavian Studies different social, historical and geographical in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centu- University College, London meanings of religious reading in Northern ries (session 24). Unfortunately, no paper pre- Europe, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and sented at the conference was a follow-up of St https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol17/iss4/1 26 et al.: Volume 17, Number 4
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The SHARP Copenhagen conference presentation on Victorian serial tales as ‘nine- tury England. Minna Ahokas discussed the brought together scholars from Nordic and teenth-century soaps’ provided a plausible hy- Enlightenment book culture in Finland. Both Baltic countries with a common interest in pothesis on the development of the serial for- the well-established enlightenment scholars books, manuscripts, reading, writing and mat from printed publications to radio and and the forbidden best-sellers were well- publishing. Many of us had already met at tv. known among the Finnish intelligentsia, other occasions or been in virtual contact with The interaction of letters, images, and merchants and the young officers. Letters, various networks. The Copenhagen confer- voices was discussed in the three sessions on manuscripts and book collections provide ence provided excellent possibilities to create religious reading. As Charlotte Appel (Den- excellent sources for the study of intellectual new connections between researchers, themes mark) pointed out in her introductory paper, networks. and disciplines. Personally, none of the ses- the Lutheran church created a special process I was also inspired by some papers on sions I observed was a disappointment – the of literacy in Nordic countries. Both men and more recent literary phenomena and the in- only frustrating experience was that I could women were obliged to learn to read, whereas teraction of media technology, visual images, only be present at one session at a time and writing skills of the common people were not literary content and social networks: among experience only the first two days of the con- supported by the church or the officials. Many these were Peter Simonsen’s (Denmark) pres- ference. different reading cultures have existed in the entation on the new graphic possibilities of Nordic and Baltic countries share many Nordic region. Jon Haarberg (Norway) the typewriter for early twentieth-century au- historical and cultural processes: the strong brought up the importance of hymn singing thors, and Gregorz Maziarczyk’s paper on ty- agrarian heritage, the importance and mo- as an intermediate process between oral and pographic inventions in the contemporary nopoly of the Lutheran church in promoting literate culture. Haarberg presented the sexton novels of Mark Z. Danielewski. literacy, and the strong impact of popular as the key figure in this process. One of the All in all, the conference has encouraged movements and self-education. However, geographically most distant examples on the us to proceed with various projects underway political and cultural differences have created processes of literacy was presented by Thorkild on book history and scribal culture in the variation in these processes. Many sessions Kjaergaard, who discussed religious reading Nordic and Baltic countries. In mid-October, provided possibilities for fruitful compari- as nation-building in Greenland. He empha- the Department of History at the University sons. Papers on the book culture in English- sized the meaning of visual and auditive as- of Helsinki, The Nordic-Baltic-Russian Net- speaking countries brought up the interna- pects (pictures, singing and reading out aloud) work on the History of Books, Libraries and tionality of book history. Books, pictures and in this process. Reading [HIBOLIRE], and The National Li- songs have travelled across oceans, national The session on Enlightenment Publics was brary of Finland will host “Fifty Years since and language borders even though people one of the many events which provided in- L’Apparition du livre.” In 2009, two workshops would have been tied to their home region. sight into new research materials and method- will be held in Helsinki and Copenhagen on Some themes came out in many case stud- ologies in different countries. Renate Berga “The Common People and the Processes of ies. One of these was the importance of the (Latvia) discussed the theses of Riga Gymna- Literacy in the Nordic Countries.” And, ru- visual aspects in book history, which was em- sium graduates in the seventeenth century as mour has it that Helsinki is bidding for a phasized by William St. Clair in his keynote evidence of intellectual life and educational sys- SHARP conference in 2010. Even though the lecture. The mediation of visual images was tem. The students reflected the scientific ideas institutional position of book history in Nor- discussed in the session “Periodicals, Pace and presented by their teachers. Tue Andersen dic countries is currently rather weak, it cer- Popularism in the 19th Century.” Henrik Lassen Nexø (Denmark) analysed the complex and tainly seems to be a source of innovative, inter- and Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen discussed the confusing network of anonymity, pseudo- disciplinary ideas. uses, reuses and imitations of illustrations in nymity and political nonsense in the public Kirsti Salmi-Niklander British and Danish magazines. Graham Law’s sphere of printed polemics in eighteenth-cen- Department of Folklore Studies University of Helsinki, Finland Begin your membership in SHARP, and you will receive the annual Book History, SHARP News, and the SHARP Membership and Periodicals Directory, which is published each summer. Students and unwaged can opt for a rate that does not include a subscription to Book History. We accept Visa, MasterCard or cheques in American currency, made out to SHARP. 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Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2008 27 SHARP News, Vol. 17, No. 4 [2008], Art. 1
28 F AUTUMN 2008 SHARP NEWS VOL. 17, NO. 4
Jennifer Summit, Memory’s Library: Medi- BIBLIOGRAPHY eval Books in Early Modern England. Chicago, SHARP NEWS UPDATE IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Rodney M. Thompson and Nigel J. General Morgan, The Cambridge History of the Book in Gail Shivel, our Book Reviews Editor for Fernando Báez and Alfred J. Mac Adam, A Britain. Volume 2, 1100-1400. Cambridge, Eng- the Americas, is stepping down in early 2009. Universal History of the Destruction of Books: land and New York: Cambridge University She has done sterling work and is ready to From Ancient Sumer to Modern-Day Iraq. New Press, 2008. undertake a range of different tasks for York: W.W. Norton, 2008. Philip J. Waller, Writers, Readers, and Repu- SHARP. We would like to appoint someone Siân Echard, Printing in the Middle Ages. tations: Literary Life in Britain 1870-1918. Ox- immediately in order to have a smooth transi- Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania ford, England: Oxford University Press, 2008. tion period of approximately six months. Press, 2008. There is also the possibility of dividing the Robert Fraser, Book History Through United States position into separate editors for Latin Postcolonial Eyes: Rewriting the Script. Bobb Cotter, The Great Monster Magazines: America and North America, so we can cover Abingdon, England and New York: A Critical Study of the Black and White Publica- exciting new developments in Latino print Routledge, 2008. tions of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Jefferson, culture and take account of the huge book Urs B. Leu, Raffael Keller, and Sandra NC: McFarland, 2008. history publishing industry in North America. Weidmann, Conrad Gessner’s Private Library. David Welky, Everything Was Better in If you are interested, please contact Sydney London, England and Boston, MA: Brill, America: Print Culture in the Great Depression. Shep