Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over Forty Years

Abstract

One of the accomplishments of Robin Myers's long career as a book historian (which includes being archivist of the Stationers’ Company) is a series of London conferences, of which she has been one of the organizers since its inception in 1979. These conferences, taking “book history” in its broadest sense, have covered many topics; and the fortieth one, in 2018, provided a backward glance by focusing on the development of the field over those four decades. The present handsomely produced volume prints eight papers from that conference, along with Myers's concise and charming history of the whole series and a record of all the papers and the thirty accompanying book publications. Although two conferences have taken place since 2018, Myers calls the theme of that one “valedictory” and feels that it forms “a natural closure.” The most recent conference (2021), she believes, may be the last, “certainly the end of the first series of conferences.” Whether or not more conferences are held, this volume stands as a fitting monument to a unique phenomenon in the history of book history.The authors of the eight papers are distinguished historians representing a wide range of specialties: Maureen Bell (personnel of the early English book trade), Peter W. M. Blayney (sixteenth-century English printing), Christopher de Hamel (illuminated manuscripts), Mirjam Foot (bookbindings), Antony Griffiths (prints), Lotte Hellinga (fifteenth-century printed books), David McKitterick (library and publishing history), and Mark Rose (copyright). They were asked to reflect on their own scholarly lives as well as on how their fields have changed over the years; and the essays (all well written and often amusing) vary in the proportions of these two ingredients. Perhaps the most evocative autobiographically are de Hamel's, beginning with his teenage enchantment with medieval manuscripts in a Dunedin Public Library display, and Blayney's, which conveys the process of discovering the joy of patient and thorough investigation; and perhaps the one with the broadest sweep of reference is McKitterick's, whose several themes include the need for national book histories to be international (since many books circulating within a country came from elsewhere). Most of the writers do not limit themselves to forty years in their survey of scholarship but often go back to at least 1900, and the book is thus a convenient guide to basic work in these areas. Other guides exist, but what makes this volume unusual is the biographical element. A passion for the subject, and for research into it, is evident in each essay, and the interdependence of personal stories and scholarly progress is repeatedly demonstrated. The result is an inspiring advertisement for the pleasures of book-history research. With this appealing volume, Robin Myers has reason to feel that her ninety-sixth birthday has been well celebrated.