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.
- ISBN10 0300107854
- ISBN13 9780300107852
- Publish Date 10 July 2005 (first published 1 July 2005)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Edition 2nd Revised edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780300107852