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The Roman Book: Books, Publishing and Performance in Classical Rome
Author(s): Rex Winsbury (Author)
- Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
- Publication Date: 26 Mar. 2009
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 246 pages
- ISBN-10: 0715638297
- ISBN-13: 9780715638293
Book Description
The publishing of Roman books has long and often been misrepresented by false analogies with modern publishing. This comprehensive new study examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw materials and aesthetic criteria of the Roman book (a papyrus scroll) and the process of literary composition. What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? What control did an author have over his creation? How were new books received and used by readers? To answer these questions Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society that, despite the omnipresence of writing, was still predominantly oral. This context helps to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous, and how the Roman book could be both a cultural icon and integral part of the self-definition of Rome’s governing elite and a direct contributor to popular culture through the mass medium of the Roman theatre.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This is a timely work. As the internet changes the ways in which media such as books are distributed and consumed, those who work with them are reflecting on what it is that makes a book a book and whether the roles they fulfil for us are inseparable from their physical nature. It is this question Winsbury has asked of the Roman world, as … he examines ‘what the Romans did when they did what we today would call publishing”‘.” –Journal of Roman Studies, Joseph Howley, University of St Andrews
About the Author
Rex Winsbury has a PhD in classical studies from London University. He has worked at the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the BBC, and as a self-employed publisher, editor and journalist. He has also taught at City University, Imperial College, and Birkbeck College, London.
