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Florence Margaret Paisey Professor Paul Fyfe HoTT: Standards in Textual Production, ENG5805 September 2012 Howsam: History

of the Book Summary of Four Methodologies Each of the four methodologies that Howsam presents merits careful thought. Darnton argues that ideas circulate in society and effect historical change through a communication circuit. This process or circuit begins with an author, is arbitrated by factors of book production and distribution, and finally rests with a reader. This view emphasizes the performances of the book trade in a given time and place. In contrast, Adams and Barker place the book, not the trade at the center of influence. While they welcome Darntons perspective, they argue that the power and history of the book involves books and all facts of their transmission. McDonald situates books in their socio-economic condition, highlighting both the processes of the book trade as well as complexities of status afforded an author or publisher. McDonald aims to understand how books operate in a culture. Finally, Secord emphasizes examining readership in all its diverse expressions, including verbal discourse as the measure of print culture, the history of books, and their influence. Having sifted through each of these approaches with regard to understanding book history, specifically Frankenstein, I feel the measure of a books influence must transcend the limits of the book trade and a given time and place. In popular parlance, we often hear the expression follow the money as the means of explaining a social problem. In similar terms, the means of explaining the cultural influence of a book,

Paisey Frankenstein, in this case, I think Id look at the book and all facts of its transmission.

Following the book from publication to its diverse points of dissemination will illuminate the points where its ideas have diffused, broadcast and rebroadcast. In the case of Frankenstein, it would be interesting to trace the transmission of the book through the 19th century and the early 20th century as its theme and characters morphed in theatre, radio, film and ephemera. This approach would map the diffusion of the book and ideas, thus documenting the production, history and transmission of this book. This does not explain the enabling social or cultural structures and historybut this approach may, indeed, signify the role of political and economic structures in the history of a book or its production, dispersal, and acquisition. Works Cited Howsam, Leslie. An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture. Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2006. Print.

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