The book we know is not an eternal form, divinely ordained. It is a familiar technological artifact, a product of industrial production. We can distinguish it at a glance from books of the earlier 20th century, and those are readily distinguishable from their early modern ancestors. . . . The book is a product of mass production. It is composed once and for all, and one size and sequence must fit everyone. Mass production was the price we paid for mass enlightenment. For many years, the printed and bound book was the only way to discuss large ideas with a large audience. — Mark Bernstein

Writing in the form of carving on stone, pen and ink on vellum, and the printing press. The figures represented and possibly Dante in the middle and Gutenberg on the right. This painting by Sir Edward Poynter appears on a cabinet designed by William Burges for a H. G. Yatman in 1858 that is nw in th Victoria & Albert Museum. — George P. Landow

Printing Technology

Printing, publishing, and society

Bibliography

Anderson, Patricia. The printed image and the transformation of popular culture 1790-1860. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

Erickson, Lee. The economy of literary form: English literature and the industrialization of publishing, 1800-1850. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Kernan, Alvin. Printing technology, letters & Samuel Johnson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Patten, Robert L. Charles Dickens and his publishers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

Price, Leah. How to do things with books in Victorian Britain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. [review].


Last modified 12 December 2019