What is the Historiography of Books? Recent Studies in Authorship, Publishing, and Reading in Modern Britain and North America

Authors

Leslie Howsam, University of WindsorFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Publication Title

The Historical Journal

Volume

54

Issue

4

First Page

1089

Last Page

1101

Abstract

Historical and literary studies of the history of the book and of reading habits in modern Anglo-American history tend to approach their subject either from the perspective of readers and publishers or from that of authors. The former works constitute a nascent historiography, addressing the problem of how the material book was used to create and replicate culture; the latter studies are more concerned with how literary authors used texts to influence and negotiate culture. This article critically reviews the two bodies of scholarship and identifies the importance of copyright and reprinting; it comments on the value of trans-national or other broad studies as opposed to specific investigations of a particular canonical text or local publishing/reading community.

Comments

This article was first published in the Historical Journal (http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X08007206). Copyright Cambridge University Press.

Recommended Citation

Howsam, Leslie. (2008). What is the Historiography of Books? Recent Studies in Authorship, Publishing, and Reading in Modern Britain and North America. The Historical Journal, 54 (4), 1089-1101.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/historypub/5