Godwin and the Book: Imagining Media, 1783-1836 Contributor(s): McCray, J. Louise (Author) |
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ISBN: 1474475760 ISBN-13: 9781474475761 Publisher: Edinburgh University Press OUR PRICE: $114.00 Product Type: Hardcover Published: April 2021 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Books & Reading - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh - Literary Criticism | Modern - 18th Century |
Physical Information: 0.56" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (1.06 lbs) 216 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Godwin and the Book explores a network of controversies concerning the relationship of media form to social futurity in Romantic-period Britain through the writing of the notorious philosopher-novelist William Godwin (1756-1836). It offers a fresh reading of Godwin's fifty-year corpus, using evidence from his fiction, philosophy and essays to argue that, throughout his career, he figured books and reading in particular ways in order to defend a set of inherited beliefs about intellectual perfectibility. In the process, it highlights many wider debates that marked out the culture of this period - including disagreements over the physiology of the mind, the ethics of novel-reading, and the social consequences of death - and considers how these debates were intertwined with the formal development of British prose in the period. |