Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia

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Yale University Press, Oct 1, 2008 - Literary Criticism - 384 pages
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When readers jot down notes in their books, they reveal something of themselves—what they believe, what amuses or annoys them, what they have read before. But a close examination of marginalia also discloses diverse and fascinating details about the time in which they are written. This book explores reading practices in the Romantic Age through an analysis of some 2,000 books annotated by British readers between 1790 and 1830.
This period experienced a great increase in readership and a boom in publishing. H. J. Jackson shows how readers used their books for work, for socializing, and for leaving messages to posterity. She draws on the annotations of Blake, Coleridge, Keats, and other celebrities as well as those of little known and unknown writers to discover how people were reading and what this can tell us about literature, social history, and the history of the book.

From inside the book

 

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Page vii
... to Posterity 198 4 The Reading Mind 249 Conclusion 299 Notes 307 Bibliography of Books with Manuscript Notes 325 Bibliography of Secondary Sources 340 Index 353 List of Illustrations 1 ''Luxury, or the Comforts of a Contents.
Page xi
he asks in ''Seven Bad Reasons Not to Study Manuscripts'' (40). ''How can we avoid anachronism, the fatal sin of most historical research? One of the best strategies lies through marginalia.'' The second challenge was my own.
Page xii
Romantic Readers is therefore in the first place an empirical study, an account of manuscript notes written in books by readers between 1790 and about 1830. At the core of it is a set of roughly 400 books in the British Library and 200 ...
Page xiii
Since most of the materials of this study—the marginalia themselves—existed only in an unpublished manuscript form, my first goal has been simply to exhibit them, to describe and quote from them in a way that may recreate for my readers ...
Page xv
''Marginalia'' I use inclusively, as in the earlier book, for all manuscript additions made by readers to a printed text, whether or not they are in the margins proper. For all their limitations I prefer ''annotator'' and ''annotate'' ...

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Romantic readers: the evidence of marginalia

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In this follow-up to her magisterial Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books , Jackson (English, Univ. of Toronto) focuses on annotations that were made in books during the Romantic Age--that exciting ... Read full review

Selected pages

Contents

The Reading Environment
1
1 Mundane Marginalia
60
2 Socializing with Books
121
3 Custodians to Posterity
198
4 The Reading Mind
249
Conclusion
299
Notes
307
Bibliography of Books with Manuscript Notes
325
Bibliography of Secondary Sources
340
Index
353
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia
H. J. Jackson
Limited preview - 2008
Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia
H. J. Jackson
No preview available - 2005

Common terms and phrases

added annotated appear attention Bibliomania Blake British Library called catalogue chapter circulating Coleridge Coleridge’s collection common contains copy critical described di√erent edition English especially evidence example experience express extracts fact find first friends give hand Hargrave idea illustration included instance interest John Keats kind Lady later least less Letters Library lines literary lives London manuscript marginalia margins marks matter means method mind natural notes novels observes once opinions original owner particular passages perhaps period poems political position practice present printed probably published readers reading reason record reference remarks response Romantic says seems shillings social Society Thelwall thing thought tion took usually volumes Walpole whole writing written wrote

About the author (2008)

H. J. Jackson is a professor, Department of English, University of Toronto. She has published extensively on Romantic literature, and her book Marginalia was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award in literarty criticism.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Romantic Readers
TitleRomantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia
AuthorH. J. Jackson
Editionillustrated, annotated
PublisherYale University Press, 2008
ISBN0300129491, 9780300129496
Length384 pages
Subjects › 

Literary Criticism / General
  
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