Historiographical Problems and Possibilities in Book History and National Histories of the Book
Rent from DeepDyveBook history is still a relatively new form of interdisciplinary inquiry that has yet to develop historiographical understandings adequate to the complexities of the questions it typically seeks to answer. 1 The truth of this troubling and troublesome assessment is especially evident, I believe, in the highly ambitious national histories of the book currently in progress. As a co-editor, with Michael Turner, of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5, 1695-1830 (hereafter, CHBB5), I have been considering for several years now the theoretical and practical implications of current book-historical knowledge about the hand-press period in Britain. I have also been thinking about how the collective understandings of our intellectual enterprise as book historians—that is, the historiographies of book history— affect the ways in which scholars proceed in their investigations. Drawing on the experience of editing CHBB5 (and, to a lesser degree, of working as co-general editor, with Henry Woudhuysen, on The Oxford Companion to the Book, now in progress), I offer some observations on ten salient and various book-historical topics. Although some of the examples come from a particular book-history project, I attempt to raise more general concerns of wider applicability in the hope that presenting this salmagundi of problems and possibilities will stimulate further reflection and discussion among—and indeed between—bibliographers and book historians.
The Interdisciplinary Nature of Book History
Writing in 1977, the distinguished Blake scholar Morris Eaves sought to combat the "parochialism" that characterized the study of publishing history [End Page 141] by promoting a "comprehensive view that can see a fact in its context, even when that context violates the boundaries of specialized areas of knowledge." 2 The difficulties attendant upon such interdisciplinarity notwithstanding, Eaves advocated a Janus-like program of research, affirming "that historians of publishing have a right and a duty to set their sights very high, working in decades to come towards a comprehensive history that looks both inwards and outwards." We must direct our scholarly attentions "inwards towards a more precise account of the everyday facts of buyers, sellers, and products" so that our knowledge of book history is adequately grounded in close investigation of the historical record. Yet, we also bear a concomitant obligation to marshal our intellectual energies "outwards towards a more comprehensive account of publishing in its evolution as part of a large history that includes all the aspects of culture that affect and are affected by publishing" (77).
Though highly ambitious, this second aspect of Eaves' twin remit is by no means eccentric, and has long been considered a basic tenet of book-historical inquiry. When some of the most consequential scholars pursuing such studies gathered in June 1980 to produce a "Statement on the History of the Book," their manifesto acknowledged the difficulty and the centrality of addressing the impact that books have made on society—and the influence that society has had on the making of books. "The history of the book is fundamental to the historical study of society," they declare, "but we are far from understanding the factors that have shaped the writing and the dissemination of books." Emphasizing the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between the book and culture, they insist "These factors have changed over time and have varied from one cultural area to another; hence the impact of the book has also been ever-varied and changing." 3
The exigencies of book-historical research accordingly appear to require a range of specialized knowledge that is genuinely intimidating. "Consider the demands on the book historian today," Robert Darnton invites us. First, he or she must command a variety of expertise about the businesses of the book trade: "know[ing] how to make paper, cast type, impose formes, operate presses, correct copy, keep accounts, ship freight, place advertisements, collect bills, satisfy readers and pacify authors." And...
