D.C. Greetham's Textual Scholarship: An Introduction

Greetham, D.C.. Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992. Print.

Are you a bibliophile? I mean a tried and true-the house is covered with books in various levels of reading-my last dollar goes to Amazon or Barnes and Noble bibliophile. The type of person who actually reads the front and back matter that explains all the way down to the font and paper used to print the book. Someone who looks down their noses at those who own a Kindle or Nook, or is even considering the purchase. A person unafraid to purchase a three-figure priced book because it's a first edition and a rare print.

If any of this sounds remotely like you. Run, don't walk, to your computer and buy D.C. Greetham's Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. Greetham explores the history of the book as an object, rather than the matter which describes the inner-textual workings. He begins with the earliest written word and follows the capitulation of the printed word to his present, which was 1992.

He questions, compellingly, the reliance of scholars on the texts of the masters, such as Aristotle and Plato, as definitive texts. He raises the questions, did the human that copied the original manuscript word for word capture the meaning of the authorial intent? Or somewhere in the transcription did a noun, or verb, or adverb sneak in that rendered an opposite meaning to that of the author?

Once he wrangles with these questions and the history of the handprinted word on papyrus and rock and scrolls, he moves into the printed press, beginning with Johann Gutenburg's world altering invention. But for those of us who grew up thinking Gutenburg was the savior of the written word, Greetham surprises us with some of the pre-inventions that actually all contributed to Johann's. He blasted Gutenburg's place on my mantle to that of Johann as a fraud. There were others printing earlier and with most of the technology as Gutenburg. Gutenburg just brought all the components into one press and revolutionized the art-not to mention, once you're the main printer the question of marketing yourself and creating the first commodified word is literally at your fingertips.

Once Greetham moves into the age of print, the book gets really interesting. If you've ever wondered where Bondini, or Garamond, or any of the myriad of font faces in your word processing software came from, Greetham answers the question. He gives the entomology and evolution of the most common, and a few not-so common, fonts. Greetham even provides a few "oh" moments as he explains. He also explains in depth exactly what an en and an em actually means and why they are used.

After covering the history and growth of the book as an object, he lightly delves into the rarified air of the textual critic like Derrida and Barthes. But if you're uninitiated in the verbal wranglings of the Structuralists and Deconstructionists, don't worry you don't need be. He just gives them the cursory acknowledgment they deserve.

Textual Scholarship: An Introduction is not for the faint of heart and casual book browser, though. It is only for the diehard unafraid to tax their mental limits. The writing at times is as dry as scholarly writing can get. And at times, Greetham, although he is genuine scholar, often deviates or seems to lose focus on the subject he is writing upon. Moreover, his constant last paragraph synopsis of the following chapter is rather amateurish and boorish, but he does capture the history of the book object almost as well as his immediate predecessor and contemporary, Phillip Gaskell (Gaskell's An Introduction to Bibliography is imminently more readable). Even with Greetham's writing fallibility, I still recommend Textual Scholarship; his scholarship is rock solid.