ENG 5805 - FALL 2026 - ECHERT

This course sees the history of bookbinding as integral to understanding how material production shapes literary history. We will consider key historical shifts in the methods and purposes of bookbinding, including the transition from bespoke binding to publishers’ bindings. Along with earlier case studies—such as the eighteenth-century publisher John Newbery, who invented the practice of selling children’s books alongside literary-themed toys—we will consider more recent examples—such as the affordable Penguin Library series from the early twentieth century. While this is not a course in bookbinding/making, students will learn about structural features and design elements of different types of bindings.

The class will feature visits to Special Collections, where students will build bibliographical skills for analyzing historical texts, as well as a focus on building book historical research skills in digital and physical archives. Overall, this seminar is as much about learning methodologies and bibliographical skills as it is about specific knowledge about bookbinding history. Though many of the examples we will study are from an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British context, students will, in consultation with the instructor, have freedom to focus on other national and temporal areas for their larger assignments.

A background in book history or the History of Text Technologies (HoTT) is not required, but a willingness to explore the methodologies of those fields and bookish materiality more generally is.