Adam Smyth

The Book Makers

Starts at: Saturday 19 October 5:30 PM
Finishes at: Saturday 19 October 6:30 PM

Buy The Book Makers

Become a Friend

The choice for fans of the Festival, this celebration of the printed book tells the story of the extraordinary men and women who took the book in radical new directions: printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders.

Their story is one of skill, craft, mess, cunning, triumph. Some names are familiar: jobbing printer (and United States Founding Father) Benjamin Franklin; Arts & Craft bookbinder Thomas Cobden-Sanderson. But no one remembers Sarah Eaves, wife of John Baskerville, and her crucial contribution to the history of type. Nor Charles Edward Mudie, populariser of the circulating library and arguably the most influential figure in book publishing before Jeff Bezos. Nor William Wildgoose who meticulously bound Shakespeare’s First Folio before disappearing from history. The Book-Makers puts people back into this story of contingencies and quirks, of successes and failures. It will leave ink on your fingers and explains why the printed book continues to flourish.

Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford University.