Extending the Book introduces the largely-forgotten art of extra-illustration -- individually adding portraits or other illustrations to published books -- and explores what this personalized form of book design reveals about the history of reading. It includes a brief introduction to the concept of designing and creating a unique book by adding external material and an overview of the phenomenon's history and its heyday in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The works of Shakespeare -- the most popular single author for extra-illustration -- exemplify the practice as it changed over time. From the beginning, extra-illustrators had to defend the "exquisite handicraft" (in the words of an 1890 proponent) against accusations of "breaking up a good book to illustrate a worse one" (in the words of an 1892 critic). This book examines the art and the practice of extra-illustration, from crudely altered books to beautiful new creations.

Entries on James' original works, contributions to books, published letters, contributions to periodicals, translations, and miscellanea contain full descriptive and historical accounts of the physical form in which the novelist's works and writings were given to the world. Each entry gives detailed notes on size, color, binding and printing, advertisements, dates, and contents. Some include comments made about the edition by James. The first edition was published by Rupert Hart- Davis in 1957. The third edition was originally published by Oxford University Press in 1982. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR