How does our understanding of Romantic literature change when we shift the focus from bound books to unbound forms? Assumptions about the book as a bound object have isolated literature from overlapping material cultures of book making, reading, viewing, and collecting. The Book Unbound reconstructs a Romantic textual condition of unbound forms in which the book acted as a repository for open-ended collections of discrete book parts, prints, watercolours, manuscripts, and serial publications, ca. 1750-1850. Three case studies trace changing material practices of book making before and after publisher's bindings marked a turning point from a culture of unbound books. Through the restricted coterie gathered around Horace Walpole's private press at Strawberry Hill, William Blake's printmaker-poet's book making, and Charles Dickens's serialized part publications, this monograph changes understandings of the book as a medium.
| ISBN: | 9781009599986 |
| Publication date: | 31st December 2025 |
| Author: | Luisa Calè |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 316 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Romanticism |
| Genres: |
Manuscripts and illumination Material culture Publishing and book trade Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 |