Routledge Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting Book

Explore the complex history of international publishing with Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book. Published by Routledge as part of the Ashgate Series in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Studies, this scholarly work examines the era before the Chace Act of 1891. During this time, the absence of international copyright laws between Britain and the United States allowed publishers to transform texts through editing, excerpting, and redesigning appearances. Jessica DeSpain provides a detailed study of this period of textual instability. The book investigates how the physical form of a book served as a method of cultural exchange between Britain and the United States. While publishers frequently altered content and added new illustrations, the concept of the book as a physical representation of its author remained a constant. This study offers a deep look into how the material nature of books shaped the literary landscape across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century.