Owners, Annotators and the Signs of Reading

Reading, and the manifold signs of reading, have become one of the most dynamic areas of research in book history.

The reader as consumer and owner, as well as participant in the construction of new meanings, is the subject of these original essays.

Specialists in literature, art history and book history investigate the annotations, marginal marks, extra-illustration and other forms of evidence left by readers.

Through an examination of the book as a physical object, the contributors provide a range of intriguing insights into the ways in which this internalized and ephemeral activity can be understood in the context of book-trade history.