How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain /
Price, Leah
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain / Leah Price. - Course Book - 1 online resource (360 p.) : 18 halftones. 2 line illus.
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Reader's Block -- Part I. Selfish Fictions -- Chapter 2: Anthony Trollope and the Repellent Book -- Chapter 3: David Copperfield and the Absorbent Book -- Chapter 4: It-Narrative and the Book as Agent -- Part II. Bookish Transactions -- Chapter 5: The Book as Burden: Junk Mail and Religious Tracts -- Chapter 6: The Book as Go-Between: Domestic Servants and Forced Reading -- Chapter 7: The Book as Waste: Henry Mayhew and the Fall of Paper Recycling -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780691114170 9781400842186
10.1515/9781400842186 doi
Book industries and trade--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Book industries and trade--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books and reading in literature.
Books and reading--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books and reading--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books in literature--Electronic books.
Books in literature.
Books--Psychological aspects--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books--Social aspects--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books--Social aspects--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books--Psychological aspects--History--Great Britain--19th century.
English fiction--History and criticism--19th century.
English fiction--History and criticism.--19th century
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
Anthony Trollope. David Copperfield. Enlightenment. Evangelical publishers. George Gissing. Henry Mayhew. Victorians. antisocial genre. authors. bildungsroman. book buying. book handling. book preservation. book selling. book transactions. books. circulation. coffee-table book. cultural history. electronic media. household manual. identity. junk mail. life writing. literary criticism. literary theory. metonymy. mid-Victorian novels. newspaper. niche marketing. novel. novels. paper recycling. paper taxes. plastics. printed matter. reader response. readerly rule. readers. reading. religious tracts. scholars. secular fiction. secular novelists. secular press. self-help. selfhood. shared reading. social entanglements. text. tract distribution. unread book. urban sociology. verbal content. wood-pulp paper. writing.
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain / Leah Price. - Course Book - 1 online resource (360 p.) : 18 halftones. 2 line illus.
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Reader's Block -- Part I. Selfish Fictions -- Chapter 2: Anthony Trollope and the Repellent Book -- Chapter 3: David Copperfield and the Absorbent Book -- Chapter 4: It-Narrative and the Book as Agent -- Part II. Bookish Transactions -- Chapter 5: The Book as Burden: Junk Mail and Religious Tracts -- Chapter 6: The Book as Go-Between: Domestic Servants and Forced Reading -- Chapter 7: The Book as Waste: Henry Mayhew and the Fall of Paper Recycling -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780691114170 9781400842186
10.1515/9781400842186 doi
Book industries and trade--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Book industries and trade--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books and reading in literature.
Books and reading--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books and reading--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books in literature--Electronic books.
Books in literature.
Books--Psychological aspects--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books--Social aspects--History--19th century--Great Britain.
Books--Social aspects--History--Great Britain--19th century.
Books--Psychological aspects--History--Great Britain--19th century.
English fiction--History and criticism--19th century.
English fiction--History and criticism.--19th century
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
Anthony Trollope. David Copperfield. Enlightenment. Evangelical publishers. George Gissing. Henry Mayhew. Victorians. antisocial genre. authors. bildungsroman. book buying. book handling. book preservation. book selling. book transactions. books. circulation. coffee-table book. cultural history. electronic media. household manual. identity. junk mail. life writing. literary criticism. literary theory. metonymy. mid-Victorian novels. newspaper. niche marketing. novel. novels. paper recycling. paper taxes. plastics. printed matter. reader response. readerly rule. readers. reading. religious tracts. scholars. secular fiction. secular novelists. secular press. self-help. selfhood. shared reading. social entanglements. text. tract distribution. unread book. urban sociology. verbal content. wood-pulp paper. writing.