Eliot Simon - A Companion to the History of the Book

As a stimulating overview of the multidimensional present state of the field, the Companion has no peer.

CHOICE

If you want to understand how cultures come into being, endure, and change, [the editors] imply, then you need to come to terms with the rich and often surprising history of the book .... Eliot and Rose have done a fine job. Their volume can be heartily recommended as the best available starting point for any historian interested in learning about this enterprise... the Companion does not restrict itself to chronicling the development of the book itself. It also devotes attention to regimes of regulation and jurisdiction censorship, intellectual property, and the like and to systems of storage and taxonomy-libraries and bibliography. Adrian Johns, Technology and Culture

A valuable resource. Academic libraries with any kind of interest in the history of the book or the history of publishing will want this Companion on their shelves. Publishing Research Quarterly

An exceptional resource for anyone working in fields such as literature, history, cultural studies or media studies to name a few. Drawing on a large group of experts, Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose have compiled a selection of essays that guide readers through many episodes in the long history of books, both inside and outside the Western tradition ... A Companion to the History of the Book is just that a companion ... an essential text for students and scholars from a wide variety of disciplines who are led to ask questions about the commissioning, publication, distribution and consumption of books. This book is a milestone in the history of the book for it makes the first attempt to map the field like no other book before it. Script and Print

This book serves as a coherent guide to the study of the history of the book. The experts bring the latest research to their work.

Umbrella Magazine

A Companion to the History of the Book provides a wealth of information to readers of all levels in a well laid out and written volume ... a very solid foundation to the history of the book.

The Bonefolder

Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture

This series offers comprehensive, newly written surveys of key periods and movements and certain major authors, in English literary culture and history. Extensive volumes provide new perspectives and positions on contexts and on canonical and post-canonical texts, orientating the beginning student in new fields of study and providing the experienced undergraduate and new graduate with current and new directions, as pioneered and developed by leading scholars in the field.

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