Readers in a Revolution

This book is concerned with several linked revolutions in the use, study and appreciation of older books that occurred over a little more than half a century, between the 1830s and the early 1890s. Changes in the manufacture and presentation of new books in this period, dominated by mechanisation, have been much discussed elsewhere. What, on the other hand, of earlier books? Jean Viardot, writing in the Histoire de l'âedition franðcaise, and others before him, noted a revolution in taste for rare books in about 1830. What of material questions concerning these? How and where could they be studied? What opportunities were available for a population whose wealth, literacy and education were changing fundamentally? How and when did tastes and values change? How did the book trade and customers accommodate or lead change? The following considers what happened to the study and treatment of early books and some related aspects of manuscript traditions at a critical turning point in the mid-nineteenth century.By the 1880s, interests were being newly defined. Being concerned primarily with older materials, these pages have little to say about the manufacture or trade of contemporary books, though inevitably these impinged at every level of interest, influencing directions of enquiry and of enjoyment--