The Enlightenment & the Book: Scottish Authors & Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland & America by Richard B. Sher (review)

229 the salon and the home were also scientific spaces—indeed the only ones available to her as a woman when excluded from the male-dominated science academies. Other examples are Marie Paulze and Laura Bassi. Mary Somerville demonstrates how the acquisition of astronomy and geography in the home was bound up with Enlightenment notions of sociability and politeness. He also briefly takes into account Enlightenment in the Greek-speaking regions of Europe and in Spain and Portugal. This dismisses a predominant idea of an active Western center and a passive Balkan-Greek margin. Mr. Withers’s interpretation of the Enlightenment as a ‘‘cosmopolitan Republic of Letters’’ is particularly rewarding . He proposes the notion of ‘‘book geography’’—a spatial counterpart to book history—as a vehicle through which to explore the translation and reception of Enlightenment knowledge. It was not characterized by transparent mediation of ideas and smooth correspondence between thinkers; ideas were lost in translation or changed in transit, and therefore translation did not necessarily equate to their reception. For example , the Scots philosophers (Hume, Smith, Reid, Ferguson, and Millar) ‘‘left’’ Scotland in German translation and ‘‘arrived’’ transformed in the German cities, because the ‘‘Enlightenment prompted by these men’s books did not arrive at the same time.’’ Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature, Mr. Withers notes, did not appear in German until 1790–91. Voltaire’s reception differed widely in central Europe and Ireland . Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Withers convincingly demonstrates that the Enlightenment must be understood in terms of multiplicity and mobility as ideas traveled in time and, significantly, in space: ‘‘Where you were as well as who you were mattered in terms of when and how you got to know of others ’ work.’’ Lise Sorensen University of Edinburgh RICHARD B. SHER. The Enlightenment & the Book: Scottish Authors & Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain , Ireland & America. Chicago and London: Chicago, 2006. Pp. xxvi ⫹ 815. $40. In his introductory chapter, Mr. Sher rightly points out that ‘‘the book history of the Enlightenment, especially the English-language Enlightenment, remains a story waiting to be told.’’ This important book ‘‘put forth into the world’’ (to paraphrase from Johnson’s Dictionary definition of ‘‘publisher’’) tells a significant part of that story in a comprehensive and definitive way. Seeing the Enlightenment ‘‘as a grand symphony with multiple variations,’’ it explores the ‘‘intricate, complex, expansive , and intimidating’’ nature of eighteenth -century book publishing, ‘‘a negotiated , collaborative, often contested activity that occurred within the economic , technological, legal, and intellectual contexts of the day.’’ Casting eighteenth-century British, Irish, and American publishers of Scottish books as leading agents in this drama, he carries on debates with, among others, Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton, Michel Foucault, and Roy Porter. Part I explores the authors of the Scottish Enlightenment. Mr. Sher shows that Scots had become players in the Enlightenment world by the midpoint of the eighteenth century, that eighteenthcentury English men of letters were not always happy about that fact, and that 230 modern historians—such as Porter—are mistaken to fold the Scottish Enlightenment into its English counterpart. Particular attention is given to seminal authors —such as Hume, Hutcheson, and Smollett—but Mr. Sher extends the range to figures who have not always been considered part of the Scottish Enlightenment movement. His core list of 115 authors is reproduced in the form of a table in the book’s Appendix. Another table, ‘‘British, Irish, and American First Editions of Scottish Enlightenment Books, 1746–1800,’’ lists details for their 360 books. Assessing the identity of Scottish Enlightenment authors as a whole (in part by reference to ‘‘paratextual ’’ sources of evidence often overlooked by historians of texts), Mr. Sher argues that the tone of the Scottish Enlightenment was ‘‘stable, scholarly, and sociable.’’ He demonstrates the central importance of the booming book culture of Edinburgh. As he puts it, ‘‘[i]t may not be too much to say that the Scots transformed the ‘business of Enlightenment ’ into the ‘big business of Enlightenment .’’’ Part II connects these Scottish authors to their publishers in the ‘‘LondonEdinburgh Publishing Axis.’’ Significant attention goes to Andrew Millar, about whom Mr. Sher concludes: ‘‘it will never be known how many Scots he inspired to become authors, or...