Re-Constructing the Book: Literary Texts in Transmission

Literary critics, textual editors and bibliographers, and historians of publishing have hitherto tended to publish their research as if in separate fields of enquiry. The purpose of this volume is to bring together contributions from these fields in a dialogue rooted in the transmission of texts. The book is intended as both an argument for and demonstration of the potential of this realignment of literary criticism, textual criticism and the history of the book. Arranged chronologically, so as to allow the use of individual sections relevant to period literature courses, the book offers students and teachers a set of essays designed to reflect these approaches and to signal their potential for fruitful integration. Some of the essays answer the demand "Show me what literary critics (or textual editor; or book historians) do and how they do it", and stand as examples of the different concerns, methodologies and strategies employed. Others draw attention to the potential of the approaches in combination. All are concerned not simply with literary texts per se, but with the way in which the transmission of those texts is itself a process productive of meaning.