Literary Manuscript Culture in Romantic Britain

by Michelle Levy

Overview

A study of the production and circulation of literary manuscripts in Romantic-era Britain

Offers a detailed examination of the practices of literary manuscript culture, particularly the production, circulation and preservation of manuscripts, based on extensive archival researchDemonstrates how literary manuscript culture co-evolved with print culture, in a nuanced study of the interactions between the two mediaExamines the changing cultural attitudes towards literary manuscripts, and how these changes affected practices and valuesSurveys the impact of digital media on our access to and understanding of historical manuscripts
This book examines how manuscript practices interacted with an expanding print marketplace to nurture and transform the period’s literary culture. It unearths the alternative histories manuscripts tell us about British Romantic literary culture, describing the practices by which handwritten documents were written, shared, altered and preserved, and explores the functions they served as instruments of expression and sociability. By demonstrating how literary manuscript culture co-evolved with print culture, this study illuminates the complex entanglements between the media of script and print.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474457071
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2021
Series:	Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism , #1
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Michelle Levy is Professor of English at Simon Fraser University. She has published extensively on women writers, print and manuscript culture, book history and digital humanities. She also directs the Women’s Print History Project, 1750-1836, a comprehensive bibliographical database of women’s books.

Table of Contents

List of illustrationsAcknowledgements

Introduction Chapter 1: Intentionality and the Romantic Literary ManuscriptChapter 2: Literary Reviews and the Reception of Manuscript CultureChapter 3: Anna Barbauld’s Poetic Career in Script and PrintChapter 4: Lord Byron, Manuscript Poet Chapter 5: Jane Austen’s Fiction in Manuscript Chapter 6: Script’s Afterlives

Afterword: Blake’s Digitized Printed ScriptWorks Cited

What People are Saying About This

University of York Jon Mee

This book is a major intervention in the revival of manuscript studies. Rather than treating manuscripts as a form of transmission that was abruptly superseded by the explosion in print, it reveals a culture of composition and circulation that was intrinsic to the media ecology well into the Romantic period.

Editorial Reviews

Michelle Levy concludes her ambitious study Literary Manuscript Culture in Romantic Britain with a qualification: print and script were only two parts of a wider media ecology that, in the early nineteenth century, included visual and oral modes of communication, such as cartoon and caricature; or recitation and reading aloud. [...] The implication is clear: the Romantic period has given us instances and models for esteeming, questioning, combining and distinguishing different media that remain vital and relevant today.

TLS - Katthrryn Suttherrlland

In her accomplished and engaging study, Michelle Levy offers a welcome re-evaluation of manuscript culture in the Romantic period, an era often characterised by the rapid expansion of print. ... This rich and engaging study represents an important contribution to the revival of Romantic manuscript studies.

The BARS Review - Anne-Claire Michoux

Literary Manuscript Culture in Romantic Britain is a fascinating read, both for what it contains and the further work it portends. Levy’s readings on Smith, Wordsworth, Barbauld, Byron, and Austen are indeed digestible individually, but the achievement of this project lies in its dedication to shifting the critical angle from which we approach Romantic texts. Her perspective ensures that works like Sanditon and Childe Harold are not just evaluated by or in comparison to their printed counterparts, but also within the context of Romantic print’s relationship with a very much alive handwritten medium.

The Review of English Studies - Joel William Vaughan

Michelle Levy’s Literary Manuscript Culture in Romantic Britain offers a meticulous account of the complex and seldom linear relationship between sociable writing and print. [...] Her rich engaging methods open up avenues for scholars on either side of the period to explore the interaction between authors and literary technologies.

Modern Philology - Matthew Risling

This book is a major intervention in the revival of manuscript studies. Rather than treating manuscripts as a form of transmission that was abruptly superseded by the explosion in print, it reveals a culture of composition and circulation that was intrinsic to the media ecology well into the Romantic period.

University of York Jon Mee