David McKitterick

When does a book that is merely old become a rarity and an object of desire? David McKitterick examines, for the first time, the development of the idea of rare books, and why they matter. Studying examples from across Europe, he explores how this idea took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how collectors, the book trade and libraries gradually came together to identify canons that often remain the same today. In a world that many people found to be over-supplied with books, the invention of rare books was a process of selection. As books are one of the principal means of memory, this process also created particular kinds of remembering. Taking a European perspective, McKitterick looks at these interests as they developed from being matters of largely private concern and curiosity, to the larger public and national responsibilities of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600–1840

The Invention of Rare Books

Peter Holland

J. L. Dawson

A Concordance to the Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot

As we rely increasingly on digital resources, and libraries discard large parts of their older collections, what is our responsibility to preserve 'old books' for the future? David McKitterick's lively and wide-ranging study explores how old books have been represented and interpreted from the eighteenth century to the present day. Conservation of these texts has taken many forms, from early methods of counterfeiting, imitation and rebinding to modern practices of microfilming, digitisation and photography. Using a comprehensive range of examples, McKitterick reveals these practices and their effects to address wider questions surrounding the value of printed books, both in terms of their content and their status as historical objects. Creating a link between historical approaches and the emerging technologies of the future, this book furthers our understanding of old books and their significance in a world of emerging digital technology.

The Representation, Conservation and Transformation of Books since 1700

Old Books, New Technologies

A New Specimen Book of Curwen Pattern Papers

The years 1830-1914 witnessed a revolution in the manufacture and use of books as great as that in the fifteenth century. Using new technology in printing, paper-making and binding, publishers worked with authors and illustrators to meet ever-growing and more varied demands from a population seeking books at all price levels. The essays by leading book historians in this volume show how books became cheap, how publishers used the magazine and newspaper markets to extend their influence, and how book ownership became universal for the first time. The fullest account ever published of the nineteenth-century revolution in printing, publishing and bookselling, this volume brings the Cambridge History of the Book in Britain up to a point when the world of books took on a recognisably modern form.

The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain:

Explores how the idea of rare books was shaped by collectors, traders and libraries from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Using examples from across Europe, David McKitterick looks at how rare books developed from being desirable objects of largely private interest to become public and even national concerns.

Ian R. Willison

Formerly Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism D F McKenzie

D. F. McKenzie

Richard Gameson

Michael F. Suarez

Nigel J. Morgan

Claire Squires

Andrew Nash

Joseph Burney Trapp

Maureen Bell

Michael L. Turner

John Barnard

Lotte Hellinga

Rodney M. Thomson

This volume contains thirty-eight chapters on print culture in a time of religious divisions and civil war.

The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain

David McKitterick

About

Books

Join the club