The Oxford Companion to the Book (review)

Books are companions at home and away. Petrarch took along Augustine's Confessions when he climbed Mount Ventoux; Civil War generals carried Jomini's Art of War on their campaigns; Tennyson took Cymbeline to his grave. Now Oxford University Press comes with a set recommending itself as a Companion to the Book. What a tall, handsome, and intelligent companion it is!

Oxford has lavished care on the two-volume set. Its organization is prudent, its research expert and extensive, and its surfaces a pleasure to hand and eye. Printed on coated paper with ribbon bookmarks, heavily illustrated, bound in burgundy, sewn and slipcased, it is a tribute to its topic. Its editors describe the kind of companion they had in mind: 'a humane presence in whose company one takes nourishment, a trustworthy guide on pilgrimage or expedition, a close associate whose society one prizes … Of course, the value of a companion depends on one's preferences in friends' (xi–xii). I will keep my Companion safe at home; readers who take it on expeditions will want the electronic edition available through Oxford Online.

By 'book' the Companion means clay and stone tablets, hides and shells, steles, palm leaves, scrolls, screens, and bamboo. It asks, 'What is a book? If a series of discrete cuneiform texts recording grain or cattle stocks were placed in some edited order inside a container, would they constitute a "book"? Are all the MS books and other documents cataloged and uncataloged in an archive, one large book?' (170). The learned company who made the Companion offers help to those who ask such questions. A twenty-eight-member editorial team organized contributions from one another and from 368 professors, librarians and archivists, editors and publishers, students, and independent scholars from twentyseven nations.

Volume 1 begins with forty-eight essays. Eighteen are topical and thirty sum up the history of the book around the world, one essay each on Australia, Austria, Byzantium, Canada, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Latin America (all in a bunch), New Zealand, Russia, sub-Saharan Africa, and so on. The book in Britain gets three essays.

Volume 1 concludes with short entries in alphabetical order, from 'Aa, Pieter van der' through 'Czech Republic, National Library of '; volume 2 takes up the sequence from 'dagger' to 'Zweig, Stefan.' Sacred books, children's books, and the electronic book get full-length essays; almanacs, biographies, books of hours, chapbooks, comic books, cookbooks, dime novels, sex manuals, textbooks, and other types of book are treated in the alphabetical sections.

A companion should be allowed some imperfections. Vast tracts of literature vanish. The essay on the Muslim world notes that 'Iran had a proud ancient literary tradition,' but no book is named (330); there is an entry on the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám (1111) but none on the Shahnameh. The essay on the Indian subcontinent starts at 1556. A millennium of Byzantium passes in three pages (35–7). The only Odyssey and Iliad are Alexander Pope's (799).

University presses get little attention. Oxford University Press has three short alphabetical entries; Cambridge University Press, the University of Chicago Press, Edinburgh University Press, Harvard University Press, and the University of Toronto Press have one each. The university presses of South Africa get a brief entry; the university presses of California and other states, denominational universities, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale do not. The entry on 'scholarly publishing' is all about business (1128–31), and little is said about its achievements.

Illustrations are diverse and well selected, and leave me wishing for more. The cover of John Erskine's The Private Life of Helen of Troy illustrates 'Pornography' (1043); 'the famous image of King Charles V among his books' is only mentioned (200). A few great illustrators—Bewick, Oudry—are exemplified, while many others...