In this broad-ranging interdisciplinary study, Raven explores literature and the book trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. Based on intensive research into the production and sale of literature ranging from novels and periodical essays to courtesy books and popular manuals, the book examines the representation of the newly wealthy. Raven challenges the notion that prejudice against the businessman was a late nineteenth-century phenomenon. He shows how, during a period of often bewildering change and instability, a competitive literature industry led reaction against excessive...

How did people read in the past? Where, when, and why did they read? And what did they think readers and reading were for? Drawing on fields as diverse as medieval pedagogy, textual bibliography, history of science, social and literary history, this collection of essays highlights the cultural conventions involved in reading, and explores personal reading experiences. The Practice and Representation of Reading in England constitutes a major addition to our understanding of the history of readers and reading.

How did people read in the past? Where, when, and why did they read? And what did they think readers and reading were for? Drawing on fields as diverse as medieval pedagogy, textual bibliography, history of science, social and literary history, this collection of essays highlights the cultural conventions involved in reading, and explores personal reading experiences. The Practice and Representation of Reading in England constitutes a major addition to our understanding of the history of readers and reading.

This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss. Fourteen original contributions, introduced by a major re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent horrifying pillage and burning of books in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq.

In 1450 very few English men or women were personally familiar with a book; by 1850, the great majority of people daily encountered books, magazines, or newspapers. This book explores the history of this fundamental transformation, from the arrival of the printing press to the coming of steam. James Raven presents a lively and original account of the English book trade and the printers, booksellers, and entrepreneurs who promoted its development.
Viewing print and book culture through the lens of commerce, Raven offers a new interpretation of the genesis of literature and literary commerce...

The Sentinels of Tzurac is an action sci- fi story written in the spirit of George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry productions, which stimulates the imagination and brings back the emotional excitement experienced by those of all ages who followed the Star Wars and Star Trek sagas. The year is 2055. Earth's natural resources have been ravaged and the planet is slowly dying. MERIC, the mining company owned by Samuel Jensen that employs new recruit engineer Kyron, is now mining a newly discovered planet known as Terra Iota when an explosion rocks their operations and brings them to a screeching...