A History of Reading in the West (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book) - Hardcover

"This collection of authoritative essays on reading since the ancient Greeks marks the culmination of more than twenty years of work. [The editors] have assembled the leading scholars in the history of reading to provide a well-balanced, nearly comprehensive survey of developments in the West.... Mandatory reading for all scholars and their students in the history of the book and its many uses." - Libraries and Culture; "It is no exaggeration to say that these historians, mining sources ranging from the financial records of trade fairs to the annals of the Inquisitions, have transformed and revitalized the field of book history.... A landmark achievement." - San Francisco Chronicle; "Its usefulness to scholars of the history of the book, reading, writing, and print cultures is immense.... Although a different author wrote each of its thirteen chapters, the volume enjoys a wonderful coherence, in large part attributable to the collection's excellent introduction.... Deserves a place in the library of any than thirteen individual and specialized chapters.... Men and women have not always read in the same manner, even if societies from ancient Greece to the present have been societies of the written word, of the written text. A study of their reading practices, and of the textual objects they read, can, the editors of this volume believe, inform the larger transformations western society has undergone." - History of Reading News; "There is no way to encapsulate here the richness of these explorations." - Los Angeles Times Book Review

Literature has not always been written in the same ways, nor has it been received or read in the same ways over the course of Western civilization. Cavallo (Greek palaeography, U. of Rome La Sapienza), Chartier (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) and a number of other international contributors, address themes that highlight the transformation of reading methods and materials over the ages, such as the way texts in the Middle Ages were often written with the voice in mind, as they would have been read aloud, or even sung. Articles explore the innovations in the physical evolution of the book, as well as the growth and development of a broad-based reading public.