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1 results

  • 33 - Book reviewing

  • from II - LITERATURE AND THE CULTURE OF LETTERS
  • Edited by Michael F. Suarez, SJ, University of Virginia, Michael L. Turner, Bodleian Library, Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 September 2010
    Print publication:
    29 October 2009, pp 631-648

  • Summary

    The establishment and rapid spread of general book reviewing in the second half of the eighteenth century clearly altered the balance of book publishing, introducing a new factor into the marketing and reading of books. In the Critical Review's striking phrase, reviewing 'inclosed what was once a common field', and, whether they liked or loathed it, fought it or exploited it, booksellers, authors and readers came to expect this further factor in the publishing relationship. Advertising and the sight of the physical volumes themselves were no longer necessarily the primary means of initial acquaintance with books. Before ever reading booksellers' advertisements in newspapers or books, before encountering title pages, prefaces and other physical aspects of books in shops or libraries, consumers might well already have seen, and sometimes paid for, the opinions of reviewers. Bookselling has never been the same.