New Directions in Book History: Exploring Unfinished, Unpublished, Unsuccessful Encyclopedic Projects

Holmberg, Linn; Simonsen, Maria

In Stranded Encyclopedias, 1700–2000: Exploring Unfinished, Unpublished, Unsuccessful Encyclopedic Projects, fourteen scholars turn to the archives to challenge the way the history of modern encyclopedism has long been told. Rather than emphasizing successful publications and famous compilers, they explore encyclopedic enterprises that somehow failed. With a combined attention to script, print, and digital cultures, the volume highlights the many challenges facing those who have pursued complete knowledge in the past three hundred years. By introducing the concepts of stranded and strandedness, it also provides an analytical framework for approaching aspects often overlooked in histories of encyclopedias, books, and learning: the unpublished, the unfinished, the incomplete, the unsuccessfully disseminated, and the no-longer-updated. By examining these aspects in a new and original way, this book will be of value to anyone interested in the history of encyclopedism and lexicography, the history of knowledge, language, and ideas, and the history of books, writing, translating, and publishing.

Chapters 1 and 4 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2021-02-18

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783030642990

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-64300-3

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 330