The Centre for the History of the Book

The Centre for the History of the Book The CHB serves a community of over 30 scholars and offers an MSc in Book History and Material Cultures. The History of the Book is the history of the present.

The Centre for the History of the Book (CHB) was founded in 1995 as an international and interdisciplinary centre for advanced research into all aspects of the material culture of the text - its production, circulation, and reception from manuscript to electronic text. One of the first research centres to be established in the field, it is now recognized internationally as a leading centre for the

study of book history and related topics. The CHB acts as a hub for research projects in the History of the Book, broadly conceived. It has a network of local affiliates in Edinburgh and an international Advisory Board of leading scholars in the field. It runs the MSc in Book History and Material Culture, organizes an annual public lecture, a lunchtime seminar series and conferences and other events. The CHB also welcomes visiting fellows from other institutions wishing to spend a period of time undertaking research in Edinburgh. The questions book historians ask are now taking on new urgency, because we are living through a moment of media change arguably as significant and wide-ranging in its effects as the Western invention of print. In order to engage critically with our current mediascape, we need to understand its genealogy in the History of the Book. While the printed book is now being displaced from the position of cultural centrality it has occupied for so long, the History of the Book is more compelling than ever, because it offers a new perspective on our contemporary media disruptions.

The CHB Public Lecture with Kathleen Jamie is today!
08/11/2017

The CHB Public Lecture with Kathleen Jamie is today!

The Centre for the History of the Book Annual Public Lecture: an evening with Kathleen Jamie, one of the most important poets and prose writers working in Scotland today.

13/02/2017

Please see below for an updated schedule of CHB lunchtime seminars happening this semester.

All seminars take place on Fridays at 1-2pm in the Project Room (Room 1.06) in 50 George Square.

On 3 February 2017, Professor Paolo Quattrone presented a paper titled, 'Who thought accounting was boring? Rhetoric, art of memory, and the search for accounting proportions'.

Coming up this Friday, 17 February 2017, Professor James Loxley will discuss questions raised by the Palimpsest project, which mapped literary works onto the Edinburgh cityscape.

On Friday 3 March 2017, Dr Robert Irvine will present 'Burns's book: patronage and politeness in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786, 1787, 1793-4)'.

17 March 2017: Professor Emeritus Thomas Lockwood on 'Outlaw Print and Bottom-Feeding Printers'.

31 March 2017: Dr Daniel Allington on '"Karl Marx and the Kindle": Literature in the Digital Economy'.

11/10/2016

Take a look at the schedule of book history seminars we're hosting this year! All seminars take place in the Project Room (Room 1.06) in 50 George Square.

Up next on 14 October: Louise Gardner on 'Royal Correspondence in late 14th Century England: Exploring the ‘Royal Letter Book' (Oct 14, 1-2pm)

11 November 2016, 1-2pm: Bill Zachs on 'The Bibliomaniac’s Progress - Reflections on Scholarly Collecting'

25 November 2016, 1-2pm: Katie Halsey on 'Exploring Romantic-period readerships in rural Perthshire, 1780-1830'

Join us this Wednesday for our public lecture by Alberto Manguel, 'Adam's Task, a Dictionary Story'.'Adam's first task w...
03/10/2016

Join us this Wednesday for our public lecture by Alberto Manguel, 'Adam's Task, a Dictionary Story'.

'Adam's first task was to compile a sort of dictionary. Since those early days in the Garden, readers' lives have been marked by the dictionaries they have compiled and used. Dictionaries, as Adam perhaps discovered, lend us the illusion that we can say what we mean, and they are also (unfortunately for Adam) our shields against oblivion. Alberto will talk about several of the dictionaries that have been important to him throughout his reader's life and reflect on how they shaped and guided his reading.'

Alberto Manguel is director of the National Library of Argentina. His publications include A History of Reading (1996) and The Library at Night (2007).

There will be a reception following the lecture. Tickets are free, but please reserve your seat so we'll know to save you a drink!

Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-lecture-alberto-manguel-tickets-27256231121

10/05/2016

CILIP are delighted to announce that that the Book History and Material Culture MSc from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for the History of the Book has received CILIP accreditation.The taught Master of Science was granted formal accreditation by CILIP following the institution’s assessment vis...

'We have a new volunteer in the conservation studio! Laura, a MSc Book History and Material Culture student here at the ...
16/03/2016

'We have a new volunteer in the conservation studio! Laura, a MSc Book History and Material Culture student here at the University of Edinburgh, is helping us surface clean and list approximately 300 books! Welcome Laura!'

--Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh

Find out more about the hands-on work placements available as part of the MSc in Book History and Material Culture: http://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/chb/msc/programme-structure/optional-work-placement

'Shakespeare, Adaptation and the "Educational" Comic Book'Dr Shari Sabeti will give a talk on how comic books transforme...
08/03/2016

'Shakespeare, Adaptation and the "Educational" Comic Book'

Dr Shari Sabeti will give a talk on how comic books transformed Shakespeare's plays for use in school classrooms.

Friday 18 March, 1pm in the Project Room (Room 1.06), 50 George Square

More info: http://goo.gl/GG1GfO

23/02/2016

Listen to the audio recording of the roundtable discussion on bookshops and bookselling in Edinburgh and beyond on our website.

Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, of Ryerson University, will be giving a talk at 1pm tomorrow in the Project Room, 50...
18/02/2016

Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, of Ryerson University, will be giving a talk at 1pm tomorrow in the Project Room, 50 GS. Her topic is Clemence Housman (1861-1955), a gifted late-Victorian wood engraver, and more generally the contributions of women engravers to Victorian print media.

Kooistra's books include 'The Artist as Critic: Bitextuality in Fin-de-Siècle Illustrated Books' (1995), 'Christina Rossetti and Illustration: A Publishing History' (2003), and 'Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855-1875' (2011).

http://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/chb/events/seminars/invisible-hands-of-clemence-housman

26/11/2015

'The afterlives of the Mazarinades: the circulation and rewriting of the pamphlets from the Fronde in the reign of Louis XIV'

Our last lunchtime seminar of the semester! Dr Bruno Tribout (University of Aberdeen) will discuss the 'pamphlet wars' of 17th-century France.

Friday 27 November, 1-2pm
Project Room (1.06) in 50 George Square)

More info: http://goo.gl/yzMiJW

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