Synopses & Reviews
A concise edition of the highly acclaimed
Oxford Companion to the Book, this book features the 51 articles from the
Companion plus 3 brand new chapters in an affordable format! The 54 chapters introduce readers to the fascinating world of book history. Including 21 thematic studies on topics such as writing systems, the ancient and the medieval book, and the economics of print, as well as 33 regional and national histories, offering a truly global survey of the book around the world,
The Book: A Global History is the most comprehensive work of its kind. The three new articles, specially commissioned for this edition, cover censorship, copyright and intellectual property, and book history in the Caribbean and Bermuda.
All essays are illustrated throughout with reproductions, diagrams, and examples of various typographical features.
Beautifully produced and highly informative, this is a must-have for anyone with an interest in book history and the written word.
Review
"For readers interested in an academic treatment of the history of books, bookmaking, and the business of books, this collection of essays is a good place to start." --Muhammed Hassanali, Booklist
About the Author
Michael F. Suarez S.J. is Professor and Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. Formerly the J. A. Kavanaugh Professor of English at Fordham University in New York and Fellow and Tutor in English at Campion Hall, Oxford, he is co-editor of
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5, 1695-1830 (2009) and co-general editor of
The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 8 vols (2006- ).
H. R. Woudhuysen is Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. He has edited The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse (1992), with David Norbrook; Love's Labour's Lost (1998) and, with Katherine Duncan-Jones, Shakespeare's Poems (2007) for the Arden Shakespeare third series. His book Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558-1640 was published in 1996.
Table of Contents
Introduction Writing Systems
The Sacred Book
The Ancient Book
The History of the Book in Byzantium
The European Medieval Book
The European Printing Revolution
The Book as Symbol
The Transmission of Jewish Knowledge through MSS and Printed Books
Missionary Printing
Paper
The Technologies of Print
The Economics of Print
Censorship
Copyright and Intellectual Property
The Manuscript after the Coming of Print
Printed Ephemera
Children's Books
The History of Illustration and its Technologies
Bookbinding
Theories of Text, Editorial Theory, and Textual Criticism
The Electronic Book
Britain, c. 1475-1800
Britain, 1801-1914
Britain from 1914
Ireland
France
the Low Countries
Germany
Switzerland
the Nordic Countries
the Iberian Peninsula
Italy
Modern Greece, c. 1453-2000
Austria
Hungary
Czech Republic and Slovakia
Poland
the Baltic States
Slavonic Book in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
the Balkans
Sub-Saharan Africa
the Muslim World
the Indian Subcontinent
China
Korea
Japan
Southeast Asia (1): The Islands
Southeast Asia (2): The Mainland
Australia
New Zealand
Latin America
Canada
America
West Indies/Caribbean