Customer Reviews

Books As History: The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts

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Pearson's interest is not in books as texts, but in books as artefacts, an attempt to emphasise the historical and cultural interest that books hold in an age that is quick to deem them dispensable once the texts they contain become available digitally. Pearson demonstrates how printing and binding and subsequent use can create a unique artefact, worthy of preservation and study, of even the most common text. Along the way one is treated to (e.g) descriptions of how books were printed manually, and how they were bound in the ages before mass-produced publishers' bindings. Pearson writes well and accessibly (I noticed only one error - it's Edward, not Edmund, Gibbon), but best of all this book is lavishly illustrated, showcasing almost all the quirks of printing, binding, and usage to which he draws attention in the text. The book is, appropriately, well produced, and the margins are very generous: one's suspicion that they are to encourage contemporary readers to make this book into a unique artefact by taking up a pen and writing comments is confirmed at the end of the book!