Inky Fingers

The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe

Inky Fingers
Anthony Grafton
RRP:
NZ$ 44.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 38.24
Paperback
h235 x 156mm - 392pg
29 Apr 2022 US
International import eta 10-30 days
9780674271210
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
The author of The Footnote reflects on scribes, scholars, and the work of publishing during the golden age of the book. From Francis Bacon to Barack Obama, thinkers and political leaders have denounced humanists as obsessively bookish and allergic to labor. In this celebration of bookmaking in all its messy and intricate detail, renowned historian Anthony Grafton invites us to see the scholars of early modern Europe as diligent workers. Meticulously illuminating the physical and mental labors that fostered the golden age of the book-the compiling of notebooks, copying and correction of texts and proofs, preparation of copy-he shows us how the exertions of scholars shaped influential books, treatises, and forgeries. Inky Fingers ranges widely, tracing the transformation of humanistic approaches to texts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and examining the simultaneously sustaining and constraining effects of theological polemics on sixteenth-century scholars. Grafton draws new connections between humanistic traditions and intellectual innovations, textual learning and craft knowledge, manuscript and print. Above all, Grafton makes clear that the nitty-gritty of bookmaking has had a profound impact on the history of ideas-that the life of the mind depends on the work of the hands.
Grafton' s sweeping erudition and meticulous scholarship are on display in Inky Fingers, which offers us a look over the shoulders of theologians and humanist scholars. His case studies illuminate how ' traditional' historical skills-the careful reading of texts, the deciphering of marginalia, and the tracing of arcane references-still hold countless possibilities for new readings and revelations. -- Daniel Jutte, author of The Strait Gate: Thresholds and Power in Western History Inky Fingers directs our attention to the inky realities of book production and the messiness of everyday life. To erase urban contexts, correspondence networks, financial burdens, and other human factors from the early modern narrative, Grafton shows us, is to distort how new ideas-both famous and obscure-came into being. An excellent and thought-provoking book! -- Ada Palmer, author of Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance and the Terra Ignota series
Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities at Princeton University, is the author of The Footnote: A Curious History, Defenders of the Text, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, and Forgers and Critics, among other books. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780674271210
Published: 29 Apr 2022
Published In: United States
Imprint: The Belknap Press
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Format: Paperback
Height: 235mm
Width: 156mm
Pages: 392

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information