Graphic Design, Print Culture, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:27th Nov '08
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Barchas explains how from the beginning of the novel's emergence in Britain, prose writers experimented with its appearance.
The uniformity of the eighteenth-century novel in today's paperbacks and critical editions no longer conveys the early novel's visual exuberance. Janine Barchas explains how from the beginning of the novel's emergence in Britain, prose writers including Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Henry and Sarah Fielding experimented with the novel's appearance.The uniformity of the eighteenth-century novel in today's paperbacks and critical editions no longer conveys the early novel's visual exuberance. Janine Barchas explains how during the genre's formation in the first half of the eighteenth century, the novel's material embodiment as printed book rivalled its narrative content in diversity and creativity. Innovations in layout, ornamentation and even punctuation found in, for example, the novels of Richardson, an author who printed his own books, help shape a tradition of early visual ingenuity. From the beginning of the novel's emergence in Britain, prose writers including Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Henry and Sarah Fielding experimented with the novel's appearance. Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 graphic features found in eighteenth-century editions, this important study aims to recover the visual context in which the eighteenth-century novel was produced and read.
Review of the hardback: '… a handsomely illustrated book, argued with panache.' The Times Literary Supplement
Review of the hardback: 'A welcome addition … beautifully produced by Cambridge. Because of its ornamental and substantive merits it belongs in every personal and institutional library concerned with the eighteenth-century novel.' British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies
Review of the hardback: '… Barchas's discussion of the interpretive role of these graphic features, particularly in relation to the novel's formal development, is nuanced and savvy; in recalling attention to the visual context and materiality of the early novel, it opens the way to a potentially rich new area of discussion.' Sharp News
Review of the hardback: 'For the first time, we have a book that systematically examines the presentation of the novel as a part of its meaning … the great strength of this beautifully presented, lavishly illustrated, and genially written book is its vivid recapturing of the complexity and excitement of the book market in the early eighteenth century … a delightful, informative, and highly suggestive survey of printing techniques that will compel any reader of the early novel to see the form in a new, and richly material fashion.' Libraries & Culture
Review of the hardback: '… Graphic Design will have, and deserves to have, many imitators.' The Library
'Barchas in Graphic Design, Print Culture, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel offers a fascinating composite portrait of this exuberantly bookish age.' The Wordsworth Circle
- Winner of Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing: George A. & Jean S. DeLong Book History Prize 2003
ISBN: 9780521090575
Dimensions: 244mm x 170mm x 17mm
Weight: 510g
316 pages