Book Jesuit

The Oxford Companion to the Book

By Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen

"This magnificent reference work is a tribute to - and celebration of - a revolutionary invention ... An extraordinary tour de force, a cornucopia of bookish information ... These volumes, then, are a paradise for book-lovers " (Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph).

THE book about books: “The Oxford Companion to the Book”, edited by Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen, is a unique work of reference about all aspects of the book, from ancient times to the present day. It includes traditional subjects such as bibliography, palaeography, the history of printing, editorial theory and practice, textual criticism, book collecting, and libraries as well as new aspects and developments in the history of the book that have come up with electronic publishing. The “Oxford Companion” pays particular attention to how different societies shape books and how books shape societies - throughout the world, from Europe and North America to the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The first part of this monumental two-volume “Companion” is a series of introductory essays which provide generic histories of the book ranging from writing systems, the ancient and the medieval book, through central aspects of book production, theories of text, editorial theory and textual criticism. The second part covers the whole history of the book from A to Z in more than 5,000 entries, in brief definitions, biographical entries and more extensive treatments about

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