|
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
series is shaping up as one of the monuments of the
emerging discipline of 'book history'. ... As in
previous volumes, Volume VI assembles a distinguished
list of scholars to provide an authoritative statement
on the book and its contexts in the chosen period. ... The third chapter, "The Serial Revolution," interrogates two related features of Victorian print culture: the rapid and sustained expansion of the periodical press, and the publication of books in parts. Dividing the 1830–1914 era into three smaller periods, authors Graham Law and Robert L. Patten chart the rise and fall of part-issued publications, and the expansion of the market for newspapers and magazines, with particular interest in the stratification of the market into different readerships. The serialisation of fiction, whether in periodicals or parts, is a key focus of this chapter, and particular attention is paid to the careers of authors such as Charles Dickens, and publishers such as G. W. M Reynolds, trailblazers associated with one or both of these practices. Nathan Garvey, Script & Print 34:1 (2010) |
| The Cambridge History of the Book in
Britain is one of the great scholarly enterprises
of our time ... Far from being a series of good essays
on interesting topics, taken as a whole this book is not
merely the best history of the book in
nineteenth-century Britain which we have. It is, in the
present state of our knowledge, just about the best that
could be written. John Feather, Rare Books Newsletter 88 (August 2010) |