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    Books, Readers and Libraries in Fiction

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    Contributor(s)
    Attar, Karen (editor)
    Nash, Andrew (editor)
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    It is easy to find books and libraries within fiction from the earliest times onwards in works for all age groups, in canonical literature and in books that form part of popular culture. From Don Quixote to Louisa M. Alcott’s March girls and Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University wizards, the reading material of fictional personae is part of their characterisation; we are often reading readers. This volume breaks new ground in offering a chronological range of essays exploring the depiction of books, libraries and reading specifically in fiction from the medieval period to the present. Through detailed case studies from primarily British fiction that address common themes such as gender, genre and the relation between reading and writing itself, the collection examines the ways in which authors of fiction mediate and interpret books, libraries, and the act of reading to their own readers. Fiction enables writers to teach readers how to read, but it can also portray subversive acts of reading that engage with contemporary cultural anxieties or moral debates. The volume draws on approaches from literary studies, book history, library history, and theories and histories of reading, to examine what fictional representations of reading tell us about changing cultural attitudes to different reading practices, and the use (and abuse) of books beyond actual reading, both in the context of specific works and about the reception of books more widely.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/99223
    Keywords
    english studies;gender;genre;library history;reception theory;intratextuality;intertextuality;reading;materiality;novel;text;poetry
    DOI
    10.14296/ufnt1799
    ISBN
    9781913739102, 9781913739041
    Publisher
    University of London Press
    Publisher website
    https://uolpress.co.uk/
    Publication date and place
    London, 2025
    Classification
    Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
    Literary theory
    Pages
    261
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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