By Hand and Press: Early Modern Hybrid Books in Britain, France, and the Netherlands Lila Goldenberg

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Goldenberg, Lila, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. History., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0295.

0335.

0399.

Local Subjects:

0295.

0335.

0399.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (256 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-07A

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This project focuses on early modern hybrid books, which are books bound with both manuscript and printing They are an avenue to explore how fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth-century people both shaped and were shaped by the coexistence of manuscript and print cultures. Instead of viewing the two media as being in opposition, I argue that they constitute a third bibliographic category, which leveraged the respective benefits of both manuscript and print in a way that is impossible through either type of book alone. Hybrid books were formed by "prosumers" who actively customized standardized printed components with original manuscript content to assert both devotional and authorial agency. Chapter One explores hybrid liturgical books owned by both the early modern laity and the ordered in France and the Netherlands. While medieval manuscript Books of Hours and other types of prayer books were both expensive and personalized, printed ones were affordable and standardized. Hybrid books capitalized on the strengths of both media by allowing users to make inexpensive, customized liturgical books, creating personalized and affective devotional experiences. Chapter Two focuses on sixteenth and seventeenth-century English and French binder's blanks, blank pages interleaved between every printed one. These blank folios enabled readers to add structured annotations to printed books of scripture, including commentaries, translations, and intertextual references. This format had benefits that other annotation formats, such as marginalia and commonplace books, could not achieve. Chapter Three examines seventeenth-century English hybrid library catalogs, reading guides, and bibliographies. Faced with growing institutional and private collections, readers and librarians interleaved blanks into printed compendia of books to both record new books and organize knowledge iteratively and dynamically. Hybrid books illuminate how early modern readers shaped their texts. They used the combination of manuscript and print to manage information, express piety, and assert intellectual agency. The study of hybrid books offers a new typology of early modern books based on form, function, and cultural and intellectual context. Analyzing both the materiality and content of hybrid books in this dissertation challenges the linear narratives of technological progress, suggesting that the new should not always replace the preexisting

Notes:

Advisors: Kuskowski, Ada Committee members: Teplitsky, Joshua; Chartier, Roger

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07, Section: A.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2025

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798276007540

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license