The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies

Scholarly Editing and Book History

Paul Eggert

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781108485746
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108621922
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Publishing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

By the late 1980s the concept of the work had slipped out of sight, consigned to its last refuge in the library catalogue as concepts of discourse and text took its place. Scholarly editors, who depended on it, found no grounding in literary theory for their practice. But fundamental ideas do not go away, and the work is proving to be one of them. New interest in the activity of the reader in the work has broadened the concept, extending it historically and sweeping away its once-supposed aesthetic objecthood. Concurrently, the advent of digital scholarly editions is recasting the editorial endeavour. The Work and The Reader in Literary Studies tests its argument against a range of book-historically inflected case-studies from Hamlet editions to Romantic poetry archives to the writing practices of Joseph Conrad and D. H. Lawrence. It newly justifies the practice of close reading in the digital age.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction: The Book, the Work and the Scholarly Edition
• Chapter 2 Reviving the Work-Concept: Music, Literature and Historic Buildings
• Chapter 3 The Digital Native Encounters the Printed Scholarly Edition Called Hamlet
• Chapter 4 The Reader-Oriented Scholarly Edition
• Chapter 5 Digital Editions: The Archival Impulse and the Editorial Impulse
• Chapter 6 The Work, the Version and the Charles Harpur Critical Archive
• Chapter 7 Book History and Literary Study: The Late Nineteenth Century and Rolf Boldrewood
• Chapter 8 Book History and Literary Study: Joseph Conrad and D. H. Lawrence
• Chapter 9 Adaptation, Folklore and the Work: The Ned Kelly Story
• Chapter 10 Conclusion: What Editors Edit, and the Role of the Reader
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index