Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia

by H.J. Jackson

When readers jot down notes in their books, they reveal something of themselves―what they believe, what amuses or annoys them, what they have read before. But a close examination of marginalia also discloses diverse and fascinating details about the time in which they are written. This book explores reading practices in the Romantic Age through an analysis of some 2,000 books annotated by British readers between 1790 and 1830.
This period experienced a great increase in readership and a boom in publishing. H. J. Jackson shows how readers used their books for work, for socializing, and for leaving messages to posterity. She draws on the annotations of Blake, Coleridge, Keats, and other celebrities as well as those of little known and unknown writers to discover how people were reading and what this can tell us about literature, social history, and the history of the book.

385 pages, Hardcover

First published July 10, 2005

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An expansive discussion of Romantic print culture and the use of marginalia. I like how each chapter broadly talks about a purpose of marginalia before examining specific case studies from ordinary people and celebrities. A great use of marginalia — and so impressive given how easily such reader apparatuses can be lost.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were good insights every...now and then...but it was amazingly unfocused and really not very readable. When I finally finished (months after having started) I felt incredibly relieved