Writing about London ‘bookscape’ before 1800: the archive and the digital
This presentation will survey Professor Raven’s attempts to reconstruct communities of printers, publishers, booksellers and other allied trades in London before 1800, with particular attention to concepts of place, space and memory. He has coined the word “bookscape” to characterise the historical reconstruction of real, imagined and remembered book trading neighbourhoods, sites and individuals, although the term could be much more expansive. In reporting his results, Raven probes the nature and limits of the archive and how analyses can be assisted and represented by digital resources, from searchable databases of civic and fiscal records, STCs, and textual corpora to virtual reconstructions of premises and streets.
Professor James Raven MA (Cantab) MA (Oxon) PhD LittD (Cantab) FSA FRHistS is Fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge and Professor of Modern History, University of Essex. Vice-President of the Bibliographical Society, he is Director of the Cambridge Project for the Book Trust and Director of the Centre for Bibliographical History, University of Essex. In 2010 he gave the Panizzi Lectures at the British Library and among his books are The Business of Books (2007), London Booksellers and American Customers (2002), The English Novel 1770-1829 (2000) and Judging New Wealth (1996).