Extending the Book

Erin C. Blake

ISBN 10: 0295990236 / ISBN 13: 9780295990231

Published by University of Washington Press, 2010

About this Item

Introduces the art of extra-illustration and explores what this personalized form of book design reveals about the history of reading. This work includes an introduction to the concept of designing and creating a unique book by adding external material and an overview of the phenomenon's history and its heyday in the later 18th and 19th centuries. Num Pages: 40 pages, 20 color illus. BIC Classification: 3JF; 3JH; ACQ; AKLB; DSB. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 296 x 202 x 4. Weight in Grams: 130. . 2010. Illustrated. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780295990231

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Extending the Book
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295990236
• ISBN 13: 9780295990231
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Extending the Book introduces the largely-forgotten art of extra-illustration -- individually adding portraits or other illustrations to published books -- and explores what this personalized form of book design reveals about the history of reading.

It includes a brief introduction to the concept of designing and creating a unique book by adding external material and an overview of the phenomenon’s history and its heyday in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The works of Shakespeare -- the most popular single author for extra-illustration -- exemplify the practice as it changed over time.

From the beginning, extra-illustrators had to defend the “exquisite handicraft” (in the words of an 1890 proponent) against accusations of “breaking up a good book to illustrate a worse one” (in the words of an 1892 critic). This book examines the art and the practice of extra-illustration, from crudely altered books to beautiful new creations.