The Book Unbound - Material Cultures of Reading and Collecting, 1750–1850

How does our understanding of Romantic literature change when we shift the focus from bound books to unbound forms? Assumptions about the book as a bound object have isolated literature from overlapping material cultures of book making, reading, viewing, and collecting. The Book Unbound reconstructs a Romantic textual condition of unbound forms in which the book acted as a repository for open-ended collections of discrete book parts, prints, watercolours, manuscripts, and serial publications, ca. 1750–1850. Three case studies trace changing material practices of book making before and after publisher's bindings marked a turning point from a culture of unbound books. Through the restricted coterie gathered around Horace Walpole's private press at Strawberry Hill, William Blake's printmaker-poet's book making, and Charles Dickens's serialized part publications, this monograph changes understandings of the book as a medium.