Abstract
A mutual wariness exists between book historians and literary scholars, between those who study the production, circulation, and consumption of texts, broadly conceived, and those who study the content of some carefully chosen texts, narrowly conceived. Book history and literary study remain two robust fields separated by a common research agenda, with many literary scholars unwilling to embrace the empirical methods of book history and its pursuit of exploring context over text. The few scholars who have stepped across the great divide often find themselves at the vanguard of literary and cultural studies, discovering in the methods of the Great Satan approaches that have helped revise many cherished chestnuts on gender (Tuchman, M. Cohen), class (Rose), nation (St Clair), empire (Joshi), and social formation.1 This essay draws upon a series of research vignettes in order to reflect upon the contributions book history continues to make to more traditional literary study, by introducing new vistas that open the practice of close reading so cherished in the Anglophone literary academy.
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