Tom Mole

We love books. We take them to bed with us. We display them on our bookshelves. We write our names in them. They weigh down our suitcases when we go on holiday. We take them for granted. But there's much more to them than meets the eye. From how books feel and smell, to burned books, banned books and books that create nations, The Secret Life of Books is about everything beyond the words on a page. It's about how books - and readers - have evolved over time. And about how books still have the power to change our lives. 'A real treasure trove for book lovers' ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH 'Every sentence is utterly captivating ... probably the most compulsive text ever penned about what it means to handle and possess a book' CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL, author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts 'Wonderfully insightful' ALBERTO MANGUEL, author of A History of Reading

This insightful and elegantly written book examines how the popular media of the Victorian era sustained and transformed the reputations of Romantic writers. Tom Mole provides a new reception history of Lord Byron, Felicia Hemans, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth—one that moves beyond the punctual historicism of much recent criticism and the narrow horizons of previous reception histories. He attends instead to the material artifacts and cultural practices that remediated Romantic writers and their works amid shifting understandings of history, memory, and media. Mole scrutinizes Victorian efforts to canonize and commodify Romantic writers in a changed media ecology. He shows how illustrated books renovated Romantic writing, how preachers incorporated irreligious Romantics into their sermons, how new statues and memorials integrated Romantic writers into an emerging national pantheon, and how anthologies mediated their works to new generations. This ambitious study investigates a wide range of material objects Victorians made in response to Romantic writing—such as photographs, postcards, books, and collectibles—that in turn remade the public’s understanding of Romantic writers. Shedding new light on how Romantic authors were posthumously recruited to address later cultural concerns, What the Victorians Made of Romanticism reveals new histories of appropriation, remediation, and renewal that resonate in our own moment of media change, when once again the cultural products of the past seem in danger of being forgotten if they are not reimagined for new audiences.

‘Probably the most compulsive text ever penned about what it means to handle and possess a book’ - Christopher de Hamel, author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts‘A real treasure trove for book lovers’ - Alexander McCall SmithWe love books. We take them to bed with us. They weigh down our suitcases when we go on holiday. We display them on our bookshelves or store them in our attics. We give them as gifts. We write our names in them. We take them for granted. And all the time, our books are leading a double life. The Secret Life of Books is about everything that isn’t just the words. It’s about how books transform us as individuals. It’s about how books – and readers – have evolved over time. And it’s about why, even with the arrival of other media, books still have the power to change our lives. In this illuminating account, Tom Mole looks at everything from binding innovations to binding errors, to books defaced by lovers, to those imprisoning professors in their offices, to books in art, to burned books, to the books that create nations, to those we’ll leave behind. It will change how you think about books.

This insightful and elegantly written book examines how the popular media of the Victorian era sustained and transformed the reputations of Romantic writers. Tom Mole provides a new reception history of Lord Byron, Felicia Hemans, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth--one that moves beyond the punctual historicism of much recent criticism and the narrow horizons of previous reception histories. He attends instead to the material artifacts and cultural practices that remediated Romantic writers and their works amid shifting understandings of history, memory, and media. Mole scrutinizes Victorian efforts to canonize and commodify Romantic writers in a changed media ecology. He shows how illustrated books renovated Romantic writing, how preachers incorporated irreligious Romantics into their sermons, how new statues and memorials integrated Romantic writers into an emerging national pantheon, and how anthologies mediated their works to new generations. This ambitious study investigates a wide range of material objects Victorians made in response to Romantic writing--such as photographs, postcards, books, and collectibles--that in turn remade the public's understanding of Romantic writers. Shedding new light on how Romantic authors were posthumously recruited to address later cultural concerns, What the Victorians Made of Romanticism reveals new histories of appropriation, remediation, and renewal that resonate in our own moment of media change, when once again the cultural products of the past seem in danger of being forgotten if they are not reimagined for new audiences.

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".

Contextualizes and annotates the influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared in the "Blackwood's Magazine" between 1817 and 1825. This title features a detailed general introduction, volume introductions and endnotes, providing the reader with an understanding of the origins and early history of "Blackwood's Magazine".