This rich and varied collection of essays by scholars and interviews with artists approaches the fraught topic of book destruction from a new angle, setting out an alternative history of the cutting, burning, pulping, defacing and tearing of books from the medieval period to our own age.

This rich and varied collection of essays by scholars and interviews with artists approaches the fraught topic of book destruction from a new angle, setting out an alternative history of the cutting, burning, pulping, defacing and tearing of books from the medieval period to our own age.

Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

This book argues that nineteenth-century editors created the modern idea of English Renaissance literature. The book analyses the theories and practices of editors who worked on Shakespeare, but also on complete editions of a remarkable range of early modern writers, from the early nineteenth century through to the early twentieth century. It reassesses the point at which purportedly more scientific theories of editing began the process of obscuring the work of these earlier editors. In recreating this largely ignored history, this book also addresses the current interest in the theory and practice of editing as it relates to new approaches to early modern writing, and to literary and book history, and the material conditions of the transmission of texts. Through a series of case studies, the book explores the way individual editors dealt with Renaissance literature and with changing ideas of how texts and their contexts might be represented.

The celebrated text on the history of the book, completely revised, updated and expanded The revised and updated edition of The Companion to the History of the Book offers a global survey of the book’s history, through print and electronic text. Already well established as a standard survey of the historiography of the book, this new, expanded edition draws on a decade of advanced scholarship to present current research on paper, printing, binding, scientific publishing, the history of maps, music and print, the profession of authorship and lexicography. The text explores the many approaches to the book from the early clay tablets of Sumer, Assyria and Babylonia to today’s burgeoning electronic devices. The expert contributions delve into such fascinating topics as archives and paperwork, and present new chapters on Arabic script, the Slavic, Canadian, African and Australasian book, new textual technologies, and much more. Containing a wealth of illustrative examples and case studies to dramatize the exciting history of the book, the text is designed for academics, students and anyone interested in the subject.

This volume provides a wide-ranging account of the development and importance of private libraries and book ownership through the seventeenth century, based upon many kinds of evidence, including examination of thousands of books, and a list of over 1,300 known owners from diverse backgrounds. It considers questions of evolution, contents and size, and motives for book ownership, during a century when growing markets for both new and second-hand books meant that books would be found, in varying numbers, in the homes of all kinds of people from the humble to the wealthy. Book ownership by women, and by non-professional households, is explicitly explored. Other topics include the balance of motivation between books for use, or for display; the relationship between libraries and museums; and cultures of collecting. While presenting a wealth of information in this field, conveniently brought together, this volume also advances methodologies for book history, and makes extensive use of material evidence such as bookbindings. It challenges received wisdom around priorities for studying private libraries, and the terminology which is appropriate to use. In addition, the list of owners, detailed in the Appendix, make this book a work of permanent reference, alongside its value in advancing book history.