The History of the Book in the West: 1800-1914 (review)

The field of book history has expanded considerably in the last twenty years or so, encompassing traditional bibliography, legal studies, library studies, history, sociology, and literary studies, among other disciplines. It is now to the point of calling forth anthologies, general histories, and overviews of the field, such as The Book History Reader (2002), the seven-volume series The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain (1999-forthcoming), and The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010). Ashgate's entry, the five-volume series The History of the Book in the West: A Library of Critical Essays, joins these efforts by, in the words of the series editor Alexis Weedon, "present[ing] a selection of the very best scholarship on the history of the book in this internationally-vibrant research field" (ix). Volume 4, The History of the Book in the West: 1800-1914, edited by Stephen Colclough and Weedon, offers a collection of twenty-one facsimile essays originally published between 1976 and 2007. The selection of these previously published essays—a combination of book chapters and journal articles—represents some "key texts [that] are no longer readily accessible online or in print form, while others are available only within books or special issues of journals." The aim of the collection is to "balance essays that provide a broad overview . . . with essays that provide an examination of specific examples" on various issues in book history illustrating a gamut of scholarly approaches, such as the bibliographic, historical, literary, quantitative, and theoretical (xi).

The editors' introduction serves as an overview of the field of book history. It is divided into five sections corresponding to the divisions of the later chapters, with generous references to the essays in the book and to other key texts of the field. The editors do an admirable job of rehearsing 115 years of book history in the relatively short space of the introduction—the nineteenth century was a truly revolutionary period for the writing, publishing, printing, distribution, and reading of printed materials—by generalizing about global changes and situating the subject matter of their later chapters amid this background. A reader would do well to interrupt the reading of the introduction to flip back to the referenced chapters and back again. He or she may have to do so, in fact, since the introduction is sadly the only editorial matter included in the volume.

The collection begins with two sections, one focused on the local and one on the global. The first, "National Publishing Structures," includes four chapters: three on the development of book publishing in the United States, France, and Russia, respectively, and one on the development of newspapers throughout Europe. As the first three chapters illustrate, each country's national publishing structure develops in its own unique way depending on geography and on literary, technological, and transportation networks. As Frédéric Barbier's chapter on nineteenth-century France shows, the slow pace of industrial and railway growth led to Paris and the provinces developing quite different book production and distribution structures. Anthony Smith's chapter "'La Presse est Libre. . .' 1815-1880" charts the uneven development of the press in various countries, illustrating the potential dangers of generalizing about a free press in Europe. The second section, "International Trade," moves from the historical situations in specific countries to global interactions. Two chapters focus on international copyright law: Catherine Seville's chapter examines the development of reciprocal copyright agreements during the nineteenth century, and James L. W. West III 's chapter discusses the implications of one particular international copyright agreement, the Chace Act (1891). The other two chapters in this section examine the international market for scientific works and the history of the British and American book trade.

The last three sections focus on aspects of book production and reception. The third section, "Publishing Practices," will be of especial interest to Victorianists: the six chapters, all written by familiar...