Publisher's Synopsis
This is a detective story about what happened next in the past. It prompts us to ask how we might know what we don't know we don't know. It is illustrated with 150 illustrations in colour. This is essentially an exploration in economic and social history. The work is focused on people and their inclinations, as book buyers and not only as book borrowers. It analyses the attempt by publishers to attract willing revenues. It examines the social and technological changes of the period, and on shifts in sets of values. It stresses the roles of purposeful creativity and entrepreneurship, and on robust human energies. The changes in the spending by individuals of their willing personal revenues impacted greatly, as did the roles of publishers in experimental, adaptable trial-and-error, and ever-evolving systems.
