Home How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain by Leah Price (ISBN: 9780691114170)

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How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain Hardcover - 2012

Name: How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain
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Author: Price, Leah
ISBN: 9780691114170

by Leah Price

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From the publisher

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Bronts, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

From the rear cover

"Beautifully written, this superb book gives us a magnificent study of the social lives of books and texts in the Victorian period: their uses as missiles, doorstops, food wrapping, spouse-ignoring devices, and vehicles for individuation, spiritual development, and childlike wonder and delight. A joy to read."--Elaine Freedgood, New York University

"This timely and witty book is more than a shrewd look at the social lives of book-objects and their users, and a reconstruction of the protocols organizing that use. It also provides, gloriously, a new interpretation of the Victorian novel."--Deidre Lynch, University of Toronto

"Price has written an exceptional book of literary history that stretches the boundaries of what literary history means and does. Making her argument through an astonishing range of evidence about the uses of books, paper, and printed material in the nineteenth century, she shows that reading is not the only thing to do with books, either as objects or as historical evidence. A remarkable work."--Nicholas Dames, Columbia University

Details

Title How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain
Author Leah Price
Binding Hardcover
Edition First printing (
Pages 360
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford
Date 2012-04
Illustrated Yes
Features Bibliography, Dust Cover, Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
ISBN 9780691114170 / 069111417X
Weight 1.4 lbs (0.64 kg)
Dimensions 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 in (23.62 x 16.51 x 3.05 cm)
Themes
- Chronological Period: 19th Century
- Cultural Region: British
Library of Congress subjects English fiction - 19th century - History and, Books and reading - Great Britain - History
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2011037436
Dewey Decimal Code 028.909

Media reviews

Citations

Choice, 09/01/2012, Page 0
Library Journal, 06/01/2012, Page 103

About the author

Leah Price is a Professor of English at Harvard University

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Hardback. New. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? This title deals with these questions.