Publisher's Synopsis
This important and innovative collection deals with issues raised by the study of writing, publishing and reading in relation to literary criticism, and provides a much-needed overview of the current state of textual studies. The volume brings together in dialogue scholars of several fields - bibliography, textual editing, publishing history and literary criticism - to exemplify, explore and encourage a practice of literary criticism which takes into account the context of the transmission of the literary text. - - Reconstructing the Book offers an informed study of some of the processes by which a literary text reaches its readers; it gives a straightforward presentation of the issues in publishing history that arise in particular periods of post-medieval English literature, and seeks to integrate publishing history with critical readings of texts in discerning and thought-provoking ways. Between them, the seventeen essays (in literary criticism, textual studies and publishing history) encompass the following periods: the Renaissance, Restoration, Eighteenth century, Romantics, Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary British and Postcolonial. Maureen Bell provides an introduction that further explores the connections among the essays in each period of study. - - The volume fills a substantial gap in current approaches to literature by addressing new trends in literary criticism. The collection will be of interest not only to researchers, students and teachers of the distinct periods of literature it covers, but also to those engaged in researching the theory of textual transmission and the sociology of texts. -
