This study deals with the many and varied impulses that resulted in a great growth in book cover design in Victorian Britain. New technical developments provided the means for artists to attempt wide experimentation, and allied to this was the impetus for a huge new market for creatively designed bindings that came in the 1840s and cumulated with the Great Exhibition in 1851. At the same time, practitioners such as Owen Jones, Walter Crane and John Leighton broke new ground in the artistic style that they adopted.

This ground-breaking study deals with the creative explosions of book cover designs in Victorian Britain from 1830 to 1880. Due to new technical developments many practitioners such as Owen Jones, Walter Crane and John Leighton broke new ground in artistic styling. Edmund King, Head of the Newspaper Archives at the British Library, describes and indexes over 750 books with great detail. Many covers are beautifully illustrated in full color or b&w. This volume is an essential reference work for students of Victorian art and well as 19th-century publishing as binding practices. Co-published with The British Library. An example of a Victorian decorated trade binding Beautifully illustrated with over 200 color & b/w book cover illustrations

First published in 2006, this work is a valuable guide for the researcher in Victorian Studies. Updated to include electronic resources, this book provides guides to catalogs, archives, museums, collections and databases containing material on the Victorian period. It organises the vast array of reference sources by discipline to help researchers tailor their investigations.

In a reevaluation of that period in Victorian illustration known as 'The Sixties,' a distinguished group of international scholars consider the impact of illustration on the act of reading; its capacity to reflect, construct, critique and challenge its audience's values; its response to older graphic traditions; and its assimilation of foreign influences. While focused on the years 1855 to 1875, the essays take up issues related to the earlier part of the nineteenth century and look forward to subsequent developments in illustration. The contributors examine significant figures such as Ford Madox Brown, Frederick Sandys, John Everett Millais, George John Pinwell, and Hablot Knight Browne in connection with the illustrated magazine, the mid-Victorian gift book, and changing visual responses to the novels of Dickens. Engaging with a number of theories and critical debates, the collection offers a detailed and provocative analysis of the nature of illustration: its production, consumption, and place within the broader contexts of mid-Victorian culture.

This book examines how Tennyson’s career was mediated, organised and directed by the publishing industry. Founded on neglected archival material, it examines the scale and distribution of Tennyson’s book sales in Britain and America, the commercial logic of publishing poetry, and how illustrated gift books and visual culture both promoted and interrogated the Poet Laureate and his life. Major publishers had become disillusioned with poetry by the time that Edward Moxon founded his business in 1830 but by the mid-1860s, his firm presided over a resurgence in poetry based on Tennyson’s work. Moxon not only orchestrated Tennyson’s rise to fame but was a major influence on how the Victorian public experienced the poetry of the Romantic period. This study reevaluates his crucial role, and examines how he repackaged poetry for the Victorian public.

This book traces a revolution in values that transformed nineteenth-century attitudes to second-hand books, bibliography and collecting.

A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK Edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose “As a stimulating overview of the multidimensional present state of the field, the Companion has no peer.” Choice “If you want to understand how cultures come into being, endure, and change, then you need to come to terms with the rich and often surprising history Of the book ... Eliot and Rose have done a fine job. Their volume can be heartily recommended. “ Adrian Johns, Technology and Culture From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. A team of expert contributors draws on the latest research in order to offer a cogent, transcontinental narrative. Many of them use illustrative examples and case studies of well-known texts, conveying the excitement surrounding this rapidly developing field. The Companion is organized around four distinct approaches to the history of the book. First, it introduces the variety of methods used by book historians and allied specialists, from the long-established discipline of bibliography to newer IT-based approaches. Next, it provides a broad chronological survey of the forms and content of texts. The third section situates the book in the context of text culture as a whole, while the final section addresses broader issues, such as literacy, copyright, and the future of the book. Contributors to this volume: Michael Albin, Martin Andrews, Rob Banham, Megan L Benton, Michelle P. Brown, Marie-Frangoise Cachin, Hortensia Calvo, Charles Chadwyck-Healey, M. T. Clanchy, Stephen Colclough, Patricia Crain, J. S. Edgren, Simon Eliot, John Feather, David Finkelstein, David Greetham, Robert A. Gross, Deana Heath, Lotte Hellinga, T. H. Howard-Hill, Peter Kornicki, Beth Luey, Paul Luna, Russell L. Martin Ill, Jean-Yves Mollier, Angus Phillips, Eleanor Robson, Cornelia Roemer, Jonathan Rose, Emile G. L Schrijver, David J. Shaw, Graham Shaw, Claire Squires, Rietje van Vliet, James Wald, Rowan Watson, Alexis Weedon, Adriaan van der Weel, Wayne A. Wiegand, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén.