Textual Studies, Bibliography, and History of the Book
The following list is a sampling of significant writings and is intended to suggest the range of the field. Students are expected to work with their advisors in developing (in the words of the English Department’s guidelines) a group of “forty or so primary books or . . . roughly the equivalent,” aiming for a “choice of titles . . . [that] illustrate the field’s extent, touching on its limits and spanning its history” and that will “represent important developments within the area.” Students are also encouraged to include case studies that might provide a focal point for the discussion of various approaches.
G. Thomas Tanselle, Textual Criticism since Greg: A Chronicle, 1950-2000 (2005)
Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists’ Books (2004)
Michael F. Suarez, “Historiographical Problems and Possibilities in Book History and National Histories of the Book,” Studies in Bibliography 56 (2003-04)
David L. Vander Meulen, “How to Read Book History,” Studies in Bibliography 56 (2003-04).
David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery, The Book History Reader (2002)
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, “Editing the Interface: Textual Studies and First Generation Electronic Objects,” Text 14 (2002)
Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux and Neil Fraistat, eds., Reimagining Textuality: Textual Studies in the Late Age of Print (2002)
D. F. McKenzie, Making Meaning. “Printers of the Mind” and other essays (2002)
Jerome McGann, Radiant Textuality (2001)
Bill Bell, Jonquil Bevan, and Phillip Bennet, eds., Across Boundaries. The Book in Culture and Commerce (2000)
Bill Bell, Laurel Brake, and David Finkelstein, eds., Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities (2000)
Jerome Rothenberg and Steve Clay, eds., The Book of the Book (2000)
D.C. Greetham, Theories of the Text (1999)
Craig Kallendorf, Virgil and the Myth of Venice. Books and Readers in the Italian Renaissance (1999)
George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle, eds., The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture (1998)
Michelle Brown and Scott McKendrick, eds., Illuminating the Book. Makers and Interpreters (1998)
Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book. Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)
G. Thomas Tanselle, Literature and Artifacts (1998)
Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (1997)
Christopher de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (1997)
Peter Shillingsburg, Resisting Texts (1997)
David D. Hall, Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book (1996)
Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (1995)
Joseph Grigely, Textualterity (1995)
Bill Katz, Dahl’s History of the Book (1995)
R. Adams and Nicolas Barker, “A New Model for the Study of the Book,” in A Potencie of Life, ed. Barker (1993)
Carol Armbruster, ed., Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary France and America (1993)
Jerome McGann. Black Riders. The Visible Language of Modernism (1993)
J.J. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Work (1992)
Roger Chartier, The Order of Books (1992)
Susan Compton, World Backwards: Russian Avant-Garde Books 1911-1934 (1992)
D. C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship. An Introduction (1992)
Robin Kinross, Modern Typography (1992)
Leila Avrin, Scribes, Scripts, and Books (1991)
Jerome McGann, The Textual Condition (1991)
Katherine Sutherland, ed., Electronic Textuality. Investigations in Method and Theory (1998)
G. Thomas Tanselle, Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing (1990)
G. Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism (1989)
David L. Vander Meulen. Where Angels Fear to Tread: Descriptive Bibliography and Alexander Pope (1988)
John Feather, A Dictionary of Book History (1987)
Gerard Genette, Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation (1987)
D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986)
Peter Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age (1986)
Julie Greer Johnson, The Book in the Americas (1985)
Jerome McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (1983)
Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?” Daedalus 111 (1982)
David Guss and Jerome Rothenberg, The Book: Spiritual Instrument (1982)
P. Needham, “Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 79 (1982)
David L. Vander Meulen, “The Printing of Pope’s Dunciad, 1728,” Studies in Bibliography 35 (1982)
Jonathan Harthan, The Illustrated Book (1981)
G. Thomas Tanselle, The History of Books as a Field of Study (1981)
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1980)
Geoffrey Ashall Glaister, An Encyclopedia of the Book (1979)
P. Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbinding: 400-1600 (1979)
Philip Gaskell, From Writer to Reader (1978)
Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book. The Impact of Printing 1450-1800 (1976)
Howard Greenfield, Books from Writer to Reader (1976)
Fredson Bowers, Essays in Bibliography, Text, and Editing (1975)
J. Moran, Printing Presses (1973)
Martin L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (1973)
Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (1972)
Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word (1970)
E. P. Goldschmidt, Medieval Texts and their First Appearance in Print (1969)
L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (1968, 1974, 1991)
Allan Stevenson, The Problem of the Missale Speciale (1967)
Fredson Bowers, Bibliography and Textual Criticism (1964)
Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (1964, 1968, 1992)
Charlton Hinman, The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare (1963)
Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
Fredson Bowers, Textual and Literary Criticism (1959)
S. H. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years of Printing (1959)
Svend Dahl, History of the Book (1958)
Paul Maas, Textual Criticism, trans. Barbara Flower (1958)
Ruari McLean, Modern Book Design, from William Morris to the Present Day (1958)
Helmut Lehmann-Haupt, The Book in America (1952)
Harry G. Aldis, John Carter, E. A. Crutchley, The Printed Book (1951)
W. W. Greg, "The Rationale of Copy-Text" (1950)
Fredson Bowers, Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949)
Phillip James, English Book Illustration 1800-1900 (1947)
Dard Hunter, Papermaking. The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (1938)
Douglas McMurtrie, The Book: The Story of Printing and Bookmaking (1937)
Konrad Haebler, The Study of Incunabula (1933)
Frederick Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (1932)
Frank A. Mumby, Publishing and Bookselling from the Earliest Times to the Present (1930)
A. E. Housman, “The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism,” Proceedings of the Classical Association 18 (1922)
Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types: Their history and use (1922)
W. W. Greg, “On Certain False Dates in Shakespearian Quartos,” Library 2 nd ser. 9 (1908)
Cyril Davenport, The Book, Its History and Development (1907)
Samuel Johnson, “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765)
Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises (1703)
SOME NATIONAL HISTORY-OF-THE-BOOK PROJECTS
America A History of the Book in America (2000- )
Australia A History of the Book in Australia (2000- ); http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/ASEC/HOBA.html
Britain The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain (1995- )
Canada History of the Book in Canada (2004- ); http://www.hbic.library.utoronto.ca/home_en.htm
France Histoire de l’edition française, ed. Henri-Jean Martin, Roger Chartier, and Jean-Pierre Vivet (1983-91)
Ireland The Oxford History of the Irish Book (2006- )
Scotland A History of the Book in Scotland (in preparation); http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/chb/hobs.htm
Wales A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales , ed.
Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees (1998)
OTHER RESOURCES
The following kinds of resources are likely to prove useful in developing a reading list and preparing for the examination.
Online
Bibliography and History of the Book http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/biblio.html
Bibliography of the History of the Book http://www.ku.edu/~bookhist/bibl9.html
Bibliography of the History of the Book in Canada http://acsweb2.ucis.dal.ca/hbicdb/english/historical.html
Centre for the History of the Book https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/chb
Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes http://www.irht.cnrs.fr/
Questia Online Library: History of the Book http://www.questia.com/library/communication/media-studies/print-med/history-of-the-book.jsp?CRID=history_of_the_book&OFFID=se1&KEY=history_of_the_book
Resources for the History of the Book http://www.humbul.ac.uk/topics/hob.html
Timetable of Printing History http://www.xs4all.nl/~knops/timetab.html
Bibliography on the Web, Bibliographical Society of America http://bibsocamer.org/
SHARP Web , Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing http://www.sharpweb.org/
Printed
G. T. Tanselle, Guide to the Study of United States Imprints (1971)
T. H. Howard-Hill, Index to British Literary Bibliography (1969- )
G. T. Tanselle, Introduction to Bibliography: Seminar Syllabus, 19th revision (2002)
G. T. Tanselle, Introduction to Scholarly Editing: Seminar Syllabus, 18th revision (2002)