Where does the book belong? Does it enshrine the soul of a nation, or is it a means by which nations talk to one another, sharing ideas, technologies, texts? This book, the first in a two-volume set of original essays, responds to these questions with archive-based case studies of print culture in a number of countries around the world.

This volume focuses on the publisher's series as a cultural formation - a material artifact and component of cultural hierarchies. Contributors engage with archival research, cultural theory, literary and bibliometric analysis (amongst a range of other approaches) to contextualize the publisher's series in terms of its cultural and economic work.

This volume features new essays by eminent and emerging Woolf scholars, focusing on the aesthetics and influences of Virginia Woolf's work. Themes include eco-criticism, conceptions of intellectual women, spaces and places, and Woolf beyond Bloomsbury. The volume opens with a personal reflection by Cecil Woolf, nephew of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

Introduces readers to the history of books in Britain—their significance, influence, and current and future status Presented as a comprehensive, up-to-date narrative, The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction explores the impact of books, manuscripts, and other kinds of material texts on the cultures and societies of the British Isles. The text clearly explains the technicalities of printing and publishing and discusses the formal elements of books and manuscripts, which are necessary to facilitate an understanding of that impact. This collaboratively authored narrative history combines the knowledge and expertise of five scholars who seek to answer questions such as: How does the material form of a text affect its meaning? How do books shape political and religious movements? How have the economics of the book trade and copyright shaped the literary canon? Who has been included in and excluded from the world of books, and why? The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction will appeal to all scholars, students, and historians interested in the written word and its continued production and presentation.

This volume focuses on the publisher's series as a cultural formation - a material artefact and component of cultural hierarchies. Contributors engage with archival research, cultural theory, literary and bibliometric analysis (amongst a range of other approaches) to contextualize the publisher's series in terms of its cultural and economic work.

'Reading has a history. But how can we recover it?' This volume brings together original research essays focusing on the history of reading in the British Isles, using evidence ranging from library records to Mass Observation surveys to highlight the social factors that influence a seemingly private, individual activity.

We inhabit a textually super-saturated and increasingly literate world. This volume encourages readers to consider the diverse methodologies used by historians of reading globally, and indicates how future research might take up the challenge of recording and interpreting the practices of readers in an increasingly digitized society.

An international trade emerged between 1870-1895 that incorporated the circulation of books among countries worldwide. A history of the social network and select agents who sold and distributed books overseas, this study demonstrates agents increasingly thought of the world as a negotiable, connected system and books as transnational commodities.

This book is an edited volume of essays that showcases how books played a crucial role in making and materialising histories of travel, scientific exchanges, translation, and global markets from the late-eighteenth century to the present. While existing book historical practice is overly dependent on models of the local and the national, we suggest that approaching the book as a cross-region, travelling – and therefore global- object offers new approaches and methodologies for a study in global perspective. By thus studying the book in its transnational and inter-imperial, textual, inter-textual and material dimensions, this collection will highlight its key role in making possible a global imagination, shaped by networks of print material, readers, publishers and translators.