| What does it mean that the vast majority of books published before the twentieth century appeared without the name of the author on the title page? In what ways does the material form of publication affect the relation between the writer and text, and between the reader and the text? This seminar is an exercise in the growing field of book history, but intends to focus insistently on the implications of book history for literary criticism. Historical and theoretical background reading will prepare us to discuss texts by Swift, Defoe, Sterne, Laclos, Hogg, Nabokov, and others. |