How can we read?

DCI 295D: Digital Editions

Prof. Mackenzie Brooks

September 19, 2023

How to read romance????

“Like all other commercial commodities in our industrial culture, literary texts are the result of a complicated and lengthy process of production that is itself controlled by a host of material and social factors. Indeed, the modern mass-market paperback was made possible by such technological innovations as the rotary magazine press and synthetic glue as well as by organizational changes in the publishing and bookselling industries.

One of the major weaknesses of the earlier romance critique has been its failure to recognize and take account of these indisputable facts in its effort to explain the genre's growing popularity.”

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Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance, 1991.

The apparent increase in the romance’s popularity may well be attributable to women’s changing beliefs and needs. However, it is conceivable that it is equally a function of other factors as well, precisely because the romance’s recent success also coincides with important changes in book production, distribution, advertising, and marketing techniques. In fact, it may be true that Harlequin Enterprises can sell 168 million romances not because women suddenly have a greater need for the romantic fantasy but because the corporation has learned to address and overcome certain recurring problems in the production and distribution of books for a mass audience. If it can be shown that romance sales have been increased by particular practices newly adopted within the publishing industry, then we must entertain the alternate possibility that the apparent need of the female audience for this type of fiction may have been generated or at least augmented artificially. If so, the astonishing success of the romance may constitute evidence for the effectiveness of commodity packaging and advertising and not for actual changes in readers’ beliefs or in the surrounding culture. The decision about what the romance’s popularity constitutes evidence for cannot be made until we know something more about recent changes in paperback marketing strategies, which differ substantially from those that have been used by the industry for almost 150 years.

Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance, 1991.

• Pick a book.
• Observe.
• Pretend you’re an archaeologist or an alien. What can you learn about this book without actually reading the story?

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Also: https://www.harlequin.com/genres-list.html

How can we read? Options:

• History of the book = tracks the development of writing, publishing, and communicative instruments in material form across a long-view of historical development.
• Bibliography = a method of description and analysis of physical objects through forensic methods in the service of humanities scholarship
• Textual editing = focuses on establishing authoritative versions of works and texts
• Ethnobibliography or biblio-alterity = a process-based engagement with literacy as a cultural phenomenon that takes different forms in different geographical and temporal locations

Bibliography 101, but first

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“Our more immediate aim in this essay is to begin to take seriously the page image as an object of mediation in a double sense: to see the page as an image, that is, to focus on the page as a primarily visual rather than textual object

and all of the qualities that attend its graphic identity; and second, to see the page image as an image of a page, that is, as a mediating object of knowledge rather than the thing itself.”

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• Piper, “The Page Image”

Codex

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A book. Or leaves folded and bound together, with a cover. One side of a leaf is a page.

Manuscript

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Written by hand, not typed or printed

https://www.huondauvergne.org/

Pamphlet

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A short work sold stab-stitched, rather than bound.

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ad-116c-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Laid paper + chainlines + watermark

Results of the paper making process

Recto + verso

Front and back of pages

Folio, quarto, octavo

Good Research Habits (Werner)

• Record call number
• Record basic information (title, author, date, publisher)
• Watch out for spell check!
• Maybe use Tropy?

Handling Books (Werner)

• Use pencil.
• No drinks!
• Clean hands. No gloves.
• Support books with cradles, pillows, etc.

Appearance

• What is this? A book or pamphlet or fragment or something else?
• How big is it?
• How many pages are in your book?
• Is it bound? What does it look like?
• Is it housed in a box or case?
• Are the fore-edges gilt or decorated?
• What do the pastedowns and endleaves look like?
• What color is the paper?
• What texture is the paper?
• Are there chainlines?
• Are there watermarks?

Contents

• Is there a title page? What’s on it? What info does it provide?
• Is there a colophon? What info does it provide?
• Are there page numbers?
• Is it foliated? (numbering the leaves, not the pages)
• Are there text divisions to help in navigation?
• Is there an index? Table of contents?
• Are there different categories of text?
• Are there marginal notes?

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Page features

• Are there headlines in your book?
• Are there signature marks?
• Does your book use catchwords? Where do they appear?
• Are there illustrations? How many? Where? What do they depict?
• Any evidence that leaves have been removed or added?

Usage

• Are there notable marks of damage or wear?
• Are parts more worn than others?
• Are there marks left by users? Where? What sort? When were they made?
• Are there marks of ownership? Who owned the book? What can you find out about them?