What is the History of the Book? (2018) by J HoneJames Raven

The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters, which Hone places very productively alongside Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon’s The History of the Rebellion), but other writers discussed are rich and numerous: Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Nahum Tate, John Tutchin, William Pittis, John Dennis, Charles Leslie. This is not even to mention the abundance of anonymous and pseudonymous material Hone must have toiled hard to dig up from various archive libraries across the world. Indeed, the strength of Hone’s book relies partially in its ability to offer fresh insights into wellknown writers at the same time as making a serious case for the quality of many lesser known and unknown texts. But this is only one of a multitude of strengths. Hone’s own prose is always eloquent, yet easily accessible; its clarity manages to avoid reducing the complexity of his analysis and argumentation. His conclusion that English literature in the age of Queen Anne is uniquely contingent on royal succession is convincing, and should command enduring influence. Literature and Party Politics is a fantastic achievement of both historical scholarship and literary criticism. If only Oscars were available for such pursuits. J J

JAMES RAVEN, What is the History of the Book? (Polity Press, 2018, x + 191 pp)

Writing a history of the book is not like writing a history of the tobacco pipe or the landscape garden. For, as John Milton famously wrote, ‘books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are’. To write a history of the book not only means dealing with matters of print and paper and palaeography, but also wading into the histories of knowledge, of memory, of information, of communication, of imagination—indeed, of history itself. It requires asking questions about the ‘dead’ forms of physical pages and bindings without forgetting the ‘potency of life’ which can lurk within. James Raven’s new title, What is the History of the Book?, documents how generations of scholars have squared up to this challenge and suggests some new ways forward. In its erudition, ambition, and chronological, geographical, and disciplinary scope, this is a remarkable work. Raven’s previous books can hardly be accused of being narrow in focus, having covered the rise of the British book trade from the introduction of printing to Westminster by William Caxton in 1476 through into the nineteenth century. A good many careers have been devoted to a good deal less. And yet the coverage of this latest book is on a different scale. Over the course of six brisk, energetic chapters we learn about notched bone plagues from the Palaeolithic era; about

inscribed tortoise shells from ancient China; about Sumerian clay tablets from five-thousand years ago; about rolled bamboo books and papyrus scrolls; about finely illustrated manuscripts, painstakingly copied onto vellum; about the skilled processes of handpress printing; about the possibilities and potential futures of e-books and Google. We learn about Aztec books, Korean books, Indian books, American books, and African books, about handwritten books, printed books, and digital books. What is the History of the Book? is no parochial work of antiquarian bibliographical scholarship.

Nor is it strictly a guide for the cognoscenti. Raven writes in lucid, concise, clear prose. He provides some sense of just what exactly book historians do and why they do it. The first half of the book surveys some of the formative activities of book historians, particularly the compilation of catalogues and other bibliographical resources over the past century. While these resources have spurred on scholarship in the field, Raven argues, their limitations have also hampered generations of historians from exploring the global impact of books. Equally, contextual factors of censorship, economics, copyright, and technology have historically been of less importance to bibliographers than seemingly arcane details such as watermarks and typefaces and ink. Here they are brought to the fore. It is Raven’s chief strength that he can see both wood and trees, both the place of the book in broad historical context and the significance of books as particular historical artefacts.

It therefore comes as no surprise that perhaps the most exciting chapter covers reading and historical practices of reading, an activity which is central to understanding the history of books and yet which is also ‘the most significant and challenging dimension’ of their study. Readers leave few records and those exceptions who do, offer little insight into the habits of more typical readers. Studying a book with an eye to making notes or learning discrete gobbets of information is unlike reading for pleasure or entertainment. And the same book can be read in very different ways by different readers. Even a single, specific individual can approach a single, specific book in multiple ways: a literature student scribbling notes in the margin of a novel during term time is doing something different from reading that same novel on the beach during vacation, or from reading aloud among friends. Despite these challenges, Raven indicates some possible solutions: using library records, for instance, alongside marginalia, diaries, letters, the spaces in which people read, and the furniture, shelves, and stands they used.

Covering such vast territory in under two-hundred pages, there are bound to be one or two casualties. Readers seeking a more detailed narrative history of books and the book trade in Britain will undoubtedly find Raven’s The Business of Books (2007) more to their liking. In many ways, this is a more reflective and more probing work, aimed at anybody interested in the book as a form, what it means, and how we might go about studying it. J H