Glossary of Terms: Book History
This Glossary of Terms is compiled by students, and will be an ongoing project. To date, the following terms have been annotated:
Author
Chapbooks
Manuscript
Point
Reader
Scribe
Stereotype
for which we thank the following students:
Silvia Fehlow, Marcel Fromme, Diana Fulger, Melaine Hoehr, Lena Hilmer, Carolin Mönter, Christina Seeliger, Alethea R. Wait, and Nils Zumbansen
each of whom participated in the Making Books, Shaping Readers Summer School at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, August 27th – 31st 2007
Instructors: Dr Siobhán Collins, Dr Carrie Griffin, & Mary O’ Connell, UniversityCollegeCork
Author
In the early 18th century, the definition of the term author was fairly wide; that is, the concept of author was equated with editor, for example (cf. Harmon 45). Consequently, the creativity of the author was undermined since editor basically implies the notion of merely compiling texts and preparing them for publication. It was only later that author was associated with writer, and therefore was ‘promoted’ to the realm of creativity, as it were. In other words, the author’s “imaginative and intellectual powers in the construction of a given literary text…” (Wolfreys et al. 13) were appreciated and took center stage. Nonetheless, with the advent of post-structuralism, the idea of the author as the sole creative mind behind the text has been called into question and has also become subject to debate again (cf. Ibid). Roland Barthes, in particular, seems to endorse the renunciation of the conventional assumption that the author is the creator of literary texts; hence, only he or she has the power to bestow meaning on the text. In his essay “The Death of the Author” (1968), Barthes asserts that a text consists of “quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture” (121). Accordingly, the writer simply repeats already existing ideas, words, and themes, which refutes the premise that an author creates something new. Barthes then concludes as follows: “Once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile” (Ibid.). This means that dispensing with the functions of the author liberates the text from a fixed meaning; thus, the reader is empowered to ascribe his or her own meaning to the words of the text. Now, the only task left for the author is to compile and blend words together. Apparently, there seems to be a tendency to deny authors the power of constructing something entirely new, which is reminiscent of the ‘old’ equation of author and editor. All in all, it can be argued that even today the concept of author is anything but easy to define and remains disputable.
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References
Barthes, Roland. 1968. “The Death of the Author.” Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 3rd. ed. Philip Rice and Waugh Patricia (eds.). London: Arnold, 1996.
Harmon, William and Holman, C. Hugh. A Handbook To Literature. 8th. ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000.
Wolfreys, Julian, Robbins, Ruth and Womack, Kenneth. Key Concepts In Literary Theory. 2nd. ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2006.
Contributed by Marcel Fromme
Chapbook
The so-called chapbooks emerged as early as the 16th century and had their heydays in the course of the 18th century (cf. Harmon 88). Their name derived from chapmen (i.e. hawkers) who predominately advertised and sold these particular books. As for their distribution, there was a high demand for those books in England as well as in America and that is where they were most popular. Contents-wise, “Chapbooks dealt with all sorts of topics and incidents: travel tales, murder cases, prodigies, strange occurrences, witchcraft, fairly tales, biographies, religious legends and tracts” (Ibid.). This means that the contents of these books appealed to the broad masses. Even abridged versions of famous novels like Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and The Pilgrim’s Progress were published as chapbooks (cf. All the same, the stories often lacked quality as anonymous authors simply copied from (bestselling) books without a license. Furthermore, the books were relatively short since they only contained 16 to 32 pages (cf. Harmon 88). With regard to the materiality, a chapbook was characteristically of poor quality and badly produced. That is to say, it consisted of cheap paper, was poorly printed, and was frequently devoid of a cover (cf. However, a chapbook was affordable even for a member of the working class, which vastly contributed to the spread of chapbooks since literacy increased amongst the ‘lower classes’ (cf. Ibid.). At present, it is worth mentioning that “[t]he term [chapbook] has been revived as the name for miscellaneous small books and pamphlets” (Harmon 88). Today, especially collections of shorter poems are published in the form of chapbooks (see
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References
Harmon, William and Holman, C. Hugh. A Handbook To Literature. 8th. ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000.
L 390 Children’s Literature: Lecture Notes and Slides. 13th September 2007 <
The Scottish Chapbook Project. 20 June 2002. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. 14th September 2007
Parallel Press Poetry Chapbooks. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 13th September 2007
Contributed by Nils Zumbansen
Manuscript
A manuscript is a book written by hand (especially those from the Middle Ages). The term derives from the Latin words manus (hand) and scribere (write). The so-called manuscript culture began around 1100 AD and ended ca.1500 AD with the invention of the moveable type and the printing press. There existed two forms of a manuscript: the scroll (prominent in antiquity) which was a rolled book made from papyrus; and the codex, consisting of pages bound together and given a cover. The latter form will be described in the following paragraph.
The writing material of a codex could be either paper or parchment: Parchment, which was made from sheep or calf skin, was very expensive to produce but long lasting. Paper, made from linen or rags, was much cheaper but not as durable as parchment.
When studying the design of a manuscript, it becomes obvious that these medieval works were highly valuable goods. For example, wide margins are scarcely found in a handwritten book, thereby indicating wealth and a high status in society. From a modern reader’s perspective other constituents such as headings, titles, chapters, page numbers, and indices are generally missing. These aspects made the reading process of a manuscript much slower than today. Nevertheless, in order to facilitate the reading of a medieval book initial letters were included in many manuscripts. Many a time a different colour of ink was used for emphasizing these capital letters and they frequently incorporated ornaments or illustrations. Additionally, a number of manuscripts opened with a prologue which explained the theme of the present work.
The great majority of manuscripts (around 90%) do not include any information about the author of a book. However, this is the one of the least significant aspects one needs to know about a medieval text because writing a manuscript was separated from authorship. The author only composed the text and, in most cases, had no control of its production and distribution. Involved in the process of making a manuscript were mainly the following persons: the scribe, who were paid for writing books (and often changed or corrupted them), the binder, and the printer, who was until the 18th century also the publisher and the seller of a book.
Since each manuscript was unique and highly expensive in its production the early readership was predominantly aristocratic or clerical. Such early books focused on religious texts whilst from 1350 onwards more secular texts appeared as more people got access to books. Since manuscripts could be used by many different persons at the same time and for different reasons, it was not unusual that it contained a conglomerate of legal texts, recipes, orders or romances.
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References
Mediaevum. “Information about Manuscripts”. URL: (visited September 10th 2007).
Vauchez, Andre ed. Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Cambridge Clarke, 2000.
Contributed by Silvia Fehlow
Manuscript
Generally speaking a manuscript is any document that is written by hand. The word manuscript itself derived from the Latin manu scriptus which literally means “written by hand”. Today a manuscript does not necessarily have to be hand written anymore. Movie-screenplays are also manuscripts even though they are usually typed. Sometimes when using the word manuscript we also refer to drafts or not yet completed versions of a text. For example, authors hand in manuscripts to the editor who revises them.
Manuscripts have been present in numerous cultures and existed in various different forms. There were those that were engraved in wood and those written on parchment and paper. It is very important to note that the only way of distribution of texts was the copying of manuscripts by hand. This, however, does not mean that there were exact copies of one and the same text existing. Usually different manuscripts of the same text would differ, sometimes little sometimes a lot. Scribes would sometimes change unusual words the author chose to more common ones in order to convey the meaning more clearly.
In the Middle Ages religious texts were mostly copied by monks in monasteries. From there manuscripts were increasingly distributed to universities and therefore accessible for a greater number of people. One significant change in manuscripts concerned the form of the texts. In earlier manuscripts it was not unusual that there were no spaces between words making the text hard to read for inexperienced readers. Later, however, there was a great emphasis on punctuation, meant to ensure the exact meaning of a certain text leaving little to no room for interpretation in order to convey one certain message. Generally manuscript culture was the most important means of distribution of knowledge until the invention of the printing press.
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References
Contributed by Lena Hilmer
Point(noun): A unit of typographic measurement that marks approximately 1/72 of an inch.
Though Guttenberg mainstreamed movable type in the mid 15th century, the technology of typecutting remained relatively unchanged until the late 1800s (c.f. Phinney, 1996). In 1723, the French government determined that type should be standardized. At the time, measures of font size were determined largely by local or national custom. Around 1737, French typesetter Pierre Simon Fournier began to standardize his punches by using a fixed scale (cf. Pierre Simon Fournier). Approximately ten years later (ca 1783), François-Ambroise Didot employed Fournier’s method and standardized the unit by dividing the French Royal inch first by 12 in order to create 1 ligne, and then by 6 in order to create on Point. Fournier’s measurement was ultimately adopted (cf. Typographic Unit).
This measurement is still widely used in printing worldwide (with minor size adjustments for metric and American units, as well as linguistic differences such as accented capital letters.) Most digital fonts are created using a system that divides an inch into exactly 72 points (cf. Phinney, 1996).
References
Phinney, Thomas W. “A Brief History of Type.” 14 August 1996. Frequently Asked
Questions About Fonts: The comp.fonts FAQ. Ed. Norman Walsh. 20 September
2007.
<
“Point.” Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. 2005. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.
20 September 2007.
<
"Pierre Simon Fournier." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 Jun 2007. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 20 Sep 2007. <
"Typographic unit." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Jul 2007. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 20 Sep 2007. <
Contributed by Alethea R. Wait
Reader
The very basic meaning of the term describes a person who reads or is able to read any written text. The reader is an integral part of the literary world in several ways: on a material level he is the consumer, who buys books as the products of the publishing system and thus exerts influence on the system by demand of certain topics, styles or genres. In the reverse, he himself is influenced by marketing strategies of the system, as he can only read what is published and what his attention is drawn to among the masses of new publications. The definition of reading would thus be limited to the passive consumption of a fixed product. It does, however, also make a difference in which form this product is consumed by the reader, that is whether a text is for example read in an expensively produced volume with ornamentations and heavy paper, as a paperback or on the computer screen.
On the other hand, reading is a creative process in itself, though. During this process, the reader tries to create meaning, incorporating his own knowledge into the understanding of the text and continuously formulating new expectations. As background knowledge and expectations vary from person to person, every reader thus attributes a slightly different meaning to the text. The meaning that was (possibly) intended by the author then becomes only one interpretation among many others. In contrast to the still prevalent notion of the author as the ultimate bestower of meaning, the reader then gets a much more powerful position, which is at least equal to that of the author. In the extreme it could even be said that the text itself only comes into being when it is read and given meaning. The reader would then assert even more creative and interpretative power over the text than the author himself. It is, however, questionable if the reader is really completely free in his creation of meaning, or whether the text does after all limit its range of possible interpretations and thereby also the power of the reader.
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References
Contributed by Christina Seeliger
Scribe
In ancient times, a scribe or scrivener was a public secretary (amanuensis) or clerk who professionally copied or transcribed manuscripts and documents. This profession refers back to the Ancient Egypt where scribes were trained in mathematics and writing hieroglyphs. Their writing material was the papyrus, the precursor of the modern paper. In the Middle Ages in particular, in which not every townsman was able to write, scribes were the persons that were specially trained in reading and writing. Their task was to write down or copy manuscripts and documents and to keep business records for the gentry, merchants, jurists, and other upper class burgess. From the Renaissance on, a scribe could also be a writer or journalist for a newspaper or a magazine. In reference to book history, many scribes were personal secretaries for poets and authors who did the writing for them. They only had to write what they were dictated by their masters and were not allowed to add their own ideas to the author’s original manuscript. Accordingly, scribes were an important part in the production of books as they shaped it with their verbalism. In the chain of book production, they stood on the first scale in the line of compiler, commentator and author. The latter only had a limited influence on their scribes, therefore they sometimes lamented about the bad transcription of their original manuscript after the release of their book. Nevertheless, authors and their scribes needed to have a close relationship as authors were dependent on the skills of their employees. As scribes did not sign their works, only a few important ones are known to book historians today. Just recently, Cambridge scholars identified the scribe of the famous medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer. Hence, the London scrivener Adam Pinkhurst has written the early manuscripts of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
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References
Datasegment.comOnlineDictionary.2007.Datasegment.com.13Sept.2007 <
Dean, Karen. “Chaucer scribe revealed: University of Cambridge scholar identifies mystery scribe of The Canterbury Tales.” University of Cambridge Press Releases. 19 July 2004. University of Cambridge. 13 Sept. 2007 <
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. 2007. Merriam-Webster. 13Sept.2007
MSNEncartaDictionary.2007.EncartaWorldEnglishDictionary.13Sept.2007 <
TheFreeDictionarybyFarlex.2007.FarlexInc.13Sept.2007 <
Contributed by Carolin Mönter
Scribe
In medieval times the ability to write was something special. Not everybody attended school and learned how to write. Even people who were able to read did not have the ability to write and vice versa. Before the movable type was invented every document and book had to be copied by hand. Those copies were made by scribes. Scribes had the ability to copy a text and illustrate it with little pictures and designs surrounding the first letter of a paragraph and sometimes even decorating the margins of a page. Paper and ink were very expensive and therefore scribes had to work very carefully. But even if they did so it was a very hard job to copy a whole book.[1]
Monasteries had their own scribes which worked in the scriptorium[2]. There monks learned the techniques of writing and illustrating books[3].
Before universities existed, monasteries were the central places for learning. Monks copied books mainly for use in worship. However, rulers and high-ranking churchmen commissioned books from monasteries, including historical records and Greek and Roman literature.[4]Since 1350 noble households had employed scribes. They had probably a high position among the people because the employment of a scribe was a status symbol for the master of the house.