Books have always posed a problem of time for readers. Becoming widely available in the eighteenth century'when working hours increased and lighter and quicker forms of reading (newspapers, magazines, broadsheets) surged in popularity'the material form of the codex book invited readers to situate themselves creatively in time. Drawing on letters, diaries, reading logs, and a range of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels, Christina Lupton's Reading and the Making of Time in the Eighteenth Century concretely describes how book-readers of the past carved up, expanded, and anticipated time.
Placing canonical works by Elizabeth Inchbald, Henry Fielding, Amelia Opie, and Samuel Richardson alongside those of lesser-known authors and readers, Lupton approaches books as objects that are good at attracting particular forms of attention and paths of return. In contrast to the digital interfaces of our own moment and the ephemeral newspapers and pamphlets read in the 1700s, books are rarely seen as shaping or keeping modern time. However, as Lupton demonstrates, books are often put down and picked up, they are leafed through as well as read sequentially, and they are handed on as objects designed to bridge temporal distances. In showing how discourse itself engages with these material practices, Lupton argues that reading is something to be studied textually as well as historically.
Applying modern theorists such as Niklas Luhmann, Bruno Latour, and Bernard Stiegler, Lupton offers a rare phenomenological approach to the study of a concrete historical field. This compelling book stands out for the combination of archival research, smart theoretical inquiry, and autobiographical reflection it brings into play.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: When Do We Read? The Shortness of Time / The Tense of Reading / Literature as Resistance / The Difference Time Makes / Media History as Literary Method
Chapter One: Time Divided No Difference / Talbot's Lack of Time / Breaking the Weekly Round / Some Sunday Readers / Sir Charles Comes and Goes
Chapter Two: Joining Up Time Rereading for Happiness / Slow Translation / Grenville's Reading Journals /Lifetimes of Reading
Chapter Three: Other Times Reading in the Field / Linear and Random Access / Literature and Contingency / Amelia's Beginning with the End / Sidney Bidulph and the Twice-Told Marriage / The Griffiths' Marriage by the Book
Chapter Four: Time to Come Stockpiling / Romantic Media / A Simple Story: Reading Comes Later / Godwin: The Future Is Now / Hardcover Truths / You Can't Skip Pages
Coda: Academic Time
Notes Works Cited Index
""Christina Lupton's Reading and the Making of Time in the Eighteenth Century is a fascinating exploration of how books'even those we don't get around to reading'shape our experience of time... Lupton's elegant prose render her complex ideas remarkably accessible... the book is ideally suited to course syllabi at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. Making of Time is certain to leave an impact on eighteenth-century studies, book history, and theories of reading. Moreover, its fresh perspective on the utility of activities generally deemed non-useful make it broadly applicable to other kinds of media studies including film and gaming.""
