Getting the Reading Out of It: Paper Recycling in Mayhew’s London

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Until not much more than a century ago, most reading matter was made from old rags, and much of it went on to be recycled in turn. Newspapers were handed down a chain of households as their contents staled: letters were torn to light a pipe, broadsheets pieced out dress patterns or lined pie-plates or wiped shit. In their passage from hand to hand and use to use, loose sheets corroborate Natalie Davis’s description of the book as ‘not merely a source for ideas … but a carrier of relationships.’1

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationPalgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Pages148-166
Number of pages19
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NamePalgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • History
  • Literature and Literary Theory

Keywords

  • Book History
  • Count Noun
  • Literary Critic
  • Monthly Review
  • Waste Paper

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Getting the Reading Out of It: Paper Recycling in Mayhew’s London'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this