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"This book is concerned with several linked revolutions in the use, study and appreciation of older books that occurred over a little more than half a century, between the 1830s and the early 1890s. Changes in the manufacture and presentation of new books in this period, dominated by mechanisation, have been much discussed elsewhere. What, on the other hand, of earlier books? Jean Viardot, writing in the Histoire de l'âedition franðcaise, and others before him, noted a revolution in taste for rare books in about 1830. What of material questions concerning these? How and where could they be studied? What opportunities were available for a population whose wealth, literacy and education were changing fundamentally? How and when did tastes and values change? How did the book trade and customers accommodate or lead change? The following considers what happened to the study and treatment of early books and some related aspects of manuscript traditions at a critical turning point in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1880s, interests were being newly defined. Being concerned primarily with older materials, these pages have little to say about the manufacture or trade of contemporary books, though inevitably these impinged at every level of interest, influencing directions of enquiry and of enjoyment"--
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Re-shaping the world; 3. Books in abundance; 4. Celebrating print: Libraries; 5. Access: National Collections; 6. The British Museum Commission, 1847-50; 7. Libraries in confusion; 8. Collaboration: Trading and Collecting; 9. The trade in second-hand books; 10. Private collectors and the public: Books in Detail; 11. Writing in books; 12. Bookbinding: Books on Show; 13. Reproduction; 14. Exhibitions: Another Generation; 15. Changes in direction; 16. Advice and guidance; 17. Standing back; 18. The next generation; Conclusion; 19. Then and now.
About the author
David McKitterick is Emeritus Honorary Professor of Historical Bibliography at the University of Cambridge. He is the general editor of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume VI: 1830-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2009). His most recent monograph, based on the Panizzi lectures delivered at the British Library, is The Invention of Rare Books (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Summary
Tracing a mid-nineteenth-century revolution in understandings of old and second-hand books, David McKitterick reveals a transformation in values that underpins bibliography, access and collecting today. This study illuminates how exhibitions, libraries, booksellers, scholars and popular writers all contributed to the modern world of book studies.
