The Author's Hand and the Printer's Mind Transformations of the Written Word in Early Modern Europe

'In these essays on the linguistic, typographical, social and cultural contexts of works by Shakespeare and Cervantes (among others), Roger Chartier shows once again his remarkable gifts for close reading, original observations, and the judicious and fruitful use of sociocultural theory.'
Peter Burke, University of Cambridge
 
'These brilliant essays, by the world's foremost historian of the book, are an essential guide to the textual labyrinth in which we find ourselves, a perplexing maze in which manuscripts, printed books, and digital media vie for attention. By looking with singular learning and insight at early modern texts -- above all, works by Shakespeare and Cervantes -- Chartier enables us to understand not only the written traces that have been left by the past but also the traces that we will leave for the future.'
Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University
"Chartier's essays provide an impressive model for just such a rigorous and sophisticated investigation of the reading and writing habits of the past..."
Andrew G. Bonnell, University of Queensland