Review
"I hope that Tanselle's volume will be widely read ... It should be required reading in every library school ..." -- Robin Alston, The Library, December 1999
"Tanselle puts forward a powerful case, one that too often goes unexpressed and one that will affect every reader in the future." -- David McKitterick, Times Literary Supplement, 26 February 1999
"This is a timely and thought-provoking book." -- Nicolas Barker, The Book Collector, Summer 1999
"This wide-ranging collection of essays will take its place as a classic in libraries and personal collections ..." -- Patricia Fleming, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, Spring 2000
G. Thomas Tanselle is unfashionable, frank and right: "It is not uncommon for library administrators to envision a future with bookstacks of greatly reduced size, as more and more of the texts now occupying space on paper [encased in bulky bindings] are transferred to electronic form. An understanding of the role of artifacts in the transmission of texts, however, makes unthinkable the discarding of books.... It would be folly to destroy historical evidence that has survived into the present day or to think that any newly created artifact can take the place of an earlier one."
His theme in this collection of essays, written between 1977 and 1995, is the failure of perception that accepts illusion for the reality of the artefact. A moment's thought will make his message straightforward: no responsible museum throws away its ancient pots, and no gallery its paintings, to replace them with photographs or digitalized images, however sophisticated. So, Professor Tanselle argues, it should be with books. Only by examining the originals can we understand them fully.
Librarians might, often quite properly, argue otherwise; but they do so from a perspective that has already excluded many historical, material and therefore literary values. Of course, there is an alternative view. Of course, both views exclude some of the issues most fundamental to the future of libraries and of the books they house. But, in this soberly presented book, with no dust-jacket to shout its message at casual buyers, Thomas Tanselle puts forward a powerful case, one that too often goes unexpressed and one that will affect every reader in the future. -- David McKitterick, Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 26, 1999
