British Booktrade at the Turn of the 18th Century and the Career of James Lackington
| Thesis title in Czech: | Britský knižní obchod na přelomu 18. a 19. století a kariéra Jamese Lackingtona |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | British Booktrade at the Turn of the 18th Century and the Career of James Lackington |
| Key words: | Book trade|bookselling|eighteenth century|Great Britain|circulating libraries|middle class|readership|book culture|James Lackington |
| English key words: | Book trade|bookselling|eighteenth century|Great Britain|circulating libraries|middle class|readership|book culture|James Lackington |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2014/2015 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 16.06.2015 |
| Date of assignment: | 17.06.2015 |
| Administrator's approval: | not processed yet |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 25.06.2015 |
| Date and time of defence: | 11.09.2017 00:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 16.08.2017 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 11.09.2017 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | PhDr. Soňa Nováková, CSc. |
| Guidelines |
| The proposed thesis aims at exploring British booktrade in relation with the development of the reading public. The thesis will study the spread of literacy in the late 18th century and trade opportunities that this phenomenon brought about. The means by which the reading public was able to procure books will also be discussed. The thesis will be accompanied by a case study on London bookseller James Lackington; in this Lackington’s memoirs will provide an insight into the situation of the book market and motivations of the individual participants. Attention will be brought to prices of books, their affordability to the readers as well as different selling mechanisms. The era explored in this thesis is highly interesting, because it comes after the emergence of the British novel, and because it is accompanied by the arrival of the Romantic generation of poets with their view on the authorship and the reading public. The French Revolution and the increase in goverment’s censorship and regulation and their repercussions for the book trade could also be delved into. The main argument which will be put to test in the thesis is that the increased competition in the market led to the better affordability of books to the reading public. The range of the argument includes not only the popular genres but the “higher genres” as well. In this context the individual booksellers could be presented as entrepreneurs looking for new profit opportunities. |
| References |
| Bonnell, Thomas F.. Most Disreputable Trade : Publishing the Classics of English Poetry 1765-1810. Oxford, GBR: Oxford University Press, UK, 2008. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Feather, John P.. History of British Publishing. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 1988. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Keen, Paul. Crisis of Literature in the 1790s : Print Culture and the Public Sphere. Port Chester, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Kilgour, Frederick G.. Evolution of the Book. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press, USA, 1998. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Klancher. Concise Companion to the Romantic Age. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Mitchell, Ian. History of Retailing and Consumption : Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, 1700 to 1850 : Narratives of Consumption. Farnham, Surrey, GBR: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Price, Richard. British Society, 1680-1880 : Dynamism, Containment and Change. Port Chester, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Sher, Richard B.. Enlightenment and the Book : Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. McCalman, Iain, Russell, Gillian, and Tuite, Clara, eds. Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age : British Culture, 1776-1832. Oxford, GBR: Oxford University Press, UK, 2001. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015. Suarez, Michael Felix, and H Woudhuysen. The Oxford companion to the book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. |