Note: links to subscription resources will work only when accessed through the university network. Off-campus, use UTORvpn.

1. Tuesday, 9 January

  • What is a book?

Background

2. Tuesday, 16 January

  • Reading in antiquity
  • Theories of books and textual scholarship
  • Lab: The Unix command line

Read

Background

  • Darnton, Robert. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1979. https://archive.org/details/Business_201507.
  • Galey, Alan. ‘Encoding as Editing as Reading’. In Shakespeare and Textual Studies, edited by Margaret Jane Kidnie and Sonia Massai, 196–211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139152259.013.
  • Greetham, David. ‘What Is Textual Scholarship?’ In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 21–32. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch2.
  • McKenzie, D.F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511483226.
  • Morison, Stanley. Politics and Script: Aspects of Authority and Freedom in the Development of Graeco-Latin Script from the Sixth Century BC to the Twentieth Century AD. Edited by Nicolas Barker. The Lyell Lectures 1957. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
  • Muhanna, Elias. ‘Islamic and Middle East Studies and the Digital Turn’. In The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies, edited by Elias Muhanna, 1–10. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376517-002. [University of Toronto access]

At-home lab review

3. Tuesday, 23 January

  • From scroll to codex
  • What is digital text?
  • Lab: Text editors, word processors, and markup

Read

  • Ezell, Margaret J.M. ‘Handwriting and the Book’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 90–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.008.
  • McGann, Jerome. ‘Marking Texts of Many Dimensions’. In A New Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, 358–76. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118680605.ch25.

Background

  • Brown, Michelle P. ‘The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 177–93. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch13.
  • Parkes, M.B. ‘Reading, Copying and Interpreting a Text in the Early Middle Ages’. In A History of Reading in the West, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 90–102. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.
  • Robson, Eleanor. ‘The Clay Tablet Book in Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 63–83. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch5.
  • Roemer, Cornelia. ‘The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 84–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch6.
  • Schrijver, Emile G.L. ‘The Hebraic Book’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 153–64. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch11.

At-home lab review

4. Tuesday, 30 January: Class in Fisher Rare Book Library

Study of manuscripts in the seminar room (ground floor).

Due to space constraints, the class will be split into two sessions: 9:10–10:30 (surnames beginning with A to K) and 10:40–12:00 (L to Z).

Read

  • Suarez, Michael F. ‘Book History from Descriptive Bibliographies’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 199–218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.015.

Items viewed at the Fisher Library

MS Coll. 175
Collection of papyri, 3rd century BC–3rd century AD
Frideberg MSS 9-004
Collection of fragments from the Cairo Geniza, 11th–14th centuries
MS 5321
Hugh of Fouilloy, De claustro animae, France, 1140s–1150s (additional images)
MS 3369
Hugh of Saint-Victor, Homilies on Solomon’s Ecclesiastes, Spain, 1170s–1190s (additional images)
MS 4404
William of Wycombe, Life of Robert de Béthune, England, 1190s–1200s
MS Schönborn 2
Bible, Bologna, 1270s–1280s
MS 1125
Peter Lombard, Sentences, England, 1280s–1290s
MS Coll. 267
Collection of leaves from illuminated manuscripts, 13th to 15th centuries
MS 5242
Albert of Saxony, Questions on Aristotle’s ‘On the Heavens’, Siena, 1407
MS 9700
Antiphonary, Florence?, 1400s–1430s
MS 1123
Office of the Virgin Mary for the Dominican order, written in the area of Naples and Taranto, 1423–1460s
MS 5288
Augustine, The City of God, Germany, 1430s–1470s
Walsh f 00004
printed copy of John Duns Scotus’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences (Venice, 1476)
inc ff
The ‘Nuremberg Chronicle’: Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg, 12 July 1493)
MS 8009
Sinhalese handbook of treatment, 1720s
MS 1239
Qur’an, Istanbul, 18th century
MS 8007
Tiḳun lel Shavuʻot, 18th century
MS 8002
scroll of Esther, 19th century

5. Tuesday, 6 February

  • Paper proposal due
  • Premodern revolutions of the page
  • Interfaces to texts
  • Lab: Regular Expressions and HTML

Read

  • Johns, Adrian. ‘The Coming of Print to Europe’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 107–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.009.
  • Warkentin, Germaine. ‘In Search of “The Word of the Other”: Aboriginal Sign Systems and the History of the Book in Canada’. Book History 2, no. 1 (August 1999): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/bh.1999.0012. [PDF on JSTOR]

Background

  • Albin, Michael. ‘The Islamic Book’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 165–76. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch12.
  • Clanchy, M.T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307. 3rd ed. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
  • Clanchy, M.T. ‘Parchment and Paper: Manuscript Culture 1100–1500’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 194–206. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch14.
  • Hamesse, Jacqueline. ‘The Scholastic Model of Reading’. In A History of Reading in the West, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 103–119. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.
  • Illich, Ivan. In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. [open access: University of Vermont]
  • Mak, Bonnie. How the Page Matters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. [University of Toronto access]
  • Parkes, M.B. ‘The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’. In Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, edited by J.J.G. Alexander and M.T. Gibson, 115–140. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.
  • Riedel, Dagmar. ‘Of Making Many Copies There Is No End: The Digitization of Manuscripts and Printed Books in Arabic Script’. In The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies, edited by Elias Muhanna. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376517-004. [University of Toronto access]
  • Saenger, Paul Henry. ‘Reading in the Later Middle Ages’. In A History of Reading in the West, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 120–148. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.
  • Tufte, Edward R. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990.

At-home lab review

6. Tuesday, 13 February

  • The Renaissance and Printing
  • Lab: HTML and XML

Read

  • Clegg, Cyndia Susan. ‘The Authority and Subversiveness of Print in Early-Modern Europe’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 125–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.010.
  • Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. ‘The Unacknowledged Revolution’. In The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 3–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107049963.

Background

  • Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. 4th ed. Vancouver, BC: Hartley & Marks, 2013.
  • Edgren, J.S. ‘China’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 95–110. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture 48. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch7.
  • Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139197038. [An updated abridgement of her classic study, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107049963.]
  • Hellinga, Lotte. ‘The Gutenberg Revolutions’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 207–19. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch15.
  • Kornicki, Peter. ‘Japan, Korea, and Vietnam’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 111–26. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch8.
  • Leed, Eric J. ‘Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change and the Structure of Communications Revolutions’. American Journal of Sociology 88, no. 2 (September 1982): 413–29. https://doi.org/10.1086/227682.
  • Morison, Stanley. ‘Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type’. The Library, 4th ser., 24, no. 1–2 (September 1943): 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s4-XXIV.1-2.1.
  • Sperberg-McQueen, C.M. ‘Text in the Electronic Age: Textual Study and Text Encoding, with Examples from Medieval Texts’. Literary and Linguistic Computing 6, no. 1 (1991): 34–46. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/6.1.34.

At-home lab review

16 February
Lab 1 due
20 February
No class for reading week
26 February
Final date to drop winter session courses without academic penalty

7. Tuesday, 27 February

  • Mechanizing the book (Sarah Lubelski)
  • Histories of reading experiences
  • Lab: Layout with CSS (part 1)

Read

  • Hammond, Mary. ‘Book History in the Reading Experience’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 237–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.017.
  • Raven, James. ‘The Industrial Revolution of the Book’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 143–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.011.

Background

  • Barchas, Janine. ‘Sense, Sensibility, and Soap: An Unexpected Case Study in Digital Resources for Book History’. Book History 16, no. 1 (31 October 2013): 185–214. https://doi.org/10.1353/bh.2013.0015.
  • Luna, Paul. ‘Books and Bits: Texts and Technology 1970–2000’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 381–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch28.
  • McKitterick, David. ‘Changes in the Look of the Book’. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, edited by David McKitterick, 6:75–116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521866248.003.
  • Robertson, Frances. Print Culture: From Steam Press to Ebook. Directions in Cultural History. London: Routledge, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203144206.
  • Taylor, Andrew. ‘Readers and Manuscripts’. In The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, edited by Ralph J. Hexter and David Townsend, 151–170. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394016.013.0008.

At-home lab review

8. Tuesday, 6 March

  • From codex to scrolling?
  • Lab: Layout with CSS (part 2)

Read

Background

At-home lab review

9. Tuesday, 13 March: Class in Fisher Rare Book Library

Study of typography and printing in the seminar room (ground floor).

Due to space constraints, the class will be split into two sessions: 9:10–10:30 (surnames beginning with A to K) and 10:40–12:00 (L to Z).

Read

  • Bode, Katherine, and Roger Osborne. ‘Book History from the Archival Record’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 219–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.016.

Items viewed at the Fisher Library

inc f 00019
Plutarch, Vitae illustrium uirorum (Venice: Nicolas Jenson, 1478)
stc 01210
The Booke of Common Prayer (London: Edward Whitchurche, 1549)
gal 00028
Claude Guillermet de Bérigard, Dubitationes in Dialogum Galilaei Galilaei Lyncei (Florence: Pietro Nesti, 1632)
E-10 00480
The Book of Common Prayer (London, 1662)
E-10 07820
‘Price current’ (Halifax, NS: John Bushell, 1752) [Commodity price list of Nathans and Hart. The earliest printed artifact relating to Jews in Canada: discussed in Barry Dov Walfish, “As it is written”: Judaic Treasures from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto, 2015), no. 84.]
E-10 04048
The Book of Common Prayer (Cambridge: Baskerville, 1761)
E-10 01142
Plautus, Trinummus (Parma: Bodoni, 1780)
duff pam ff 00007
William Caslon, A Specimen of Printing Types (London, 1786?)
B-10 05667
Pride and Prejudice, 3 vols (London: Egerton, 1813)
B-10 06746
James Evans and George Henry, Nu-gu-mo-nun O-je-boa an-oad ge-gë-se-üu-ne-gu-noo-du-be-üng uoô Muun-gou-duuz (New York: Fanshaw, 1837) [Ojibwa hymn book.]
G-10 00057
Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, illustrated by Francis Bedford (London: Day, 1856)
B-13 03470
excerpts from the Qur’an (Bulaq, 1867)
E-10 06742
The Communion and Other Services (Oxford: University Press, 1872)
hardy .H378 R478 1878b
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native (London: Chatto and Windus, 1878) [First appearance: twelve monthly instalments in Belgravia, 1878, each with a full-page illustration by Arthur Hopkins.]
hardy .H378 R478 1878
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, 3 vols (London: Smith, Elder, 1878) [First version published in ‘book’ format, as a three-volume novel.]
hardy .H378 R478 1878a
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 56, nos. 334–335 (March–April 1878) [American edition; lacks illustrations.]
hardy .H378 R478 1890
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1890) [‘Yellowback’ version.]
smb 01573
The Book of Common Prayer (Toronto: University Press, 1922)
E-10 01158
The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated by Eric Gill (Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire: Golden Cockerel Press, 1931) [Details at the Royal Collection Trust.]
B-13 07526
A.G. Morice, ᑐᔆᘼᔆ ᐁᘁᗒᐪ ᗟᘇᙆᑐᘬ / Carrier Prayer-Book / Livre de prières à l’usage de la tribu des Porteurs, 2nd ed. ([Fort St James, BC]: Stuart’s Lake Mission, 1933)
rogers ff 00005
The Holy Bible, designed by Bruce Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935) [The book that that made Centaur famous, now the University of Toronto’s corporate typeface. See further Bruce Rogers, An Account of the Making of the Oxford Lectern Bible (Philadelphia, PA: Lanston Monotype, 1936): Fisher, rogers pam 00025.]
duff 02694
Patricia Ainslie and Paul Ritscher, Endgrain: Contemporary Wood Engraving in North America (Mission, BC: Barbarian Press, 1994)
canlit offsite 14701
Robert Bringhurst, Ursa Major: A Polyphonic Masque for Speakers and Dancers (Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2003)

Background

  • Bringhurst, Robert. The Surface of Meaning: Books and Book Design in Canada. Vancouver, BC: CCSP Press, 2008. [on course reserve]
  • Jacobs, Alan. The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
  • Nash, Andrew. ‘The Serialization and Publication of The Return of the Native: A New Thomas Hardy Letter’. The Library 2, no. 1 (March 2001): 53–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/2.1.53.

10. Tuesday, 20 March

  • Local books: Libraries as repositories of intellectual property and cultural heritage property
  • Lab: Automating production with Make

Read

  • Attar, Karen. ‘Books in the Library’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 17–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.003.
  • Loughran, Trish. ‘Books in the Nation’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 36–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.004.
  • McGill, Meredith L. ‘Copyright and Intellectual Property: The State of the Discipline’. Book History 16, no. 1 (31 October 2013): 387–427. https://doi.org/10.1353/bh.2013.0010.

Background

  • Bruce, Lorne. Free Books for All: The Public Library Movement in Ontario, 1850–1930. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1994.
  • Gameson, Richard. ‘The Medieval Library (to c. 1450)’. In The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, edited by Elisabeth Leedham-Green and Teresa Webber, 1:13–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521781947.003.
  • Shep, Sydney J. ‘Digital Materiality’. In A New Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, 322–30. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley–Blackwell, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118680605.ch22.
  • Too, Yun Lee. The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577804.001.0001.
  • Wiegand, Wayne A. ‘Libraries and the Invention of Information’. In A Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 531–43. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690949.ch39.

At-home lab review

11. Tuesday, 27 March

  • Literary labour and the economics of publishing (Sarah Lubelski)
  • Open access and digital publishing
  • Lab: EPUB and other e-book formats

Read

Background

At-home lab review

28 March
Lab 2 due

12. Tuesday, 3 April

  • The accessible book

Read

  • Helfer, Laurence R., Molly K. Land, Ruth L. Okediji, and Jerome H. Reichman. ‘Guiding Principles for the Marrakesh Treaty’. In The World Blind Union Guide to the Marrakesh Treaty: Facilitating Access to Books for Print-Disabled Individuals, 1–20. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190679644.003.0002.
  • Shep, Sydney J. ‘Books in Global Perspectives’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 53–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139152242.005.

Background

5 April
Final paper due
16 April
Grades submitted