The Gift of Reading Book

Now comes the point at which I feel guilty marking this as 'read' when, in reality, I read the Introduction and Chapter 1 and then skimmed the rest for any mentions of my essay topic. But, aside from that, Woolf's study looks at the afterlife of historical texts in Early Modern England given the advent of printing in the period. The chapter I looked at focused specifically on the decline of the rise and fall of the chronicle and its dissolution into what Woolf chooses to call "parasitic genres" (almanacs, diaries, newsbooks and chronicle plays to name but a few) which, he argues, encompassed the original functions of the chronicle history. Given my interest in the "history play" of the Elizabethan era, and trying to pin down some reasoning for its popularity in the 1590s, this insight was a particularly useful addition to my own line of argument - precisely what I was hoping to mine this book for.

The subsequent chapters I am reliably informed by the contents page include discussions on the purposes of reading history, the ownership of historical works, borrowing and lending of historical works, and how history was marketed. A quick peek at some appendixes reveals extensive charts on the pricing of various volumes so this study is, I'm sure, nothing if not detailed. All in all, the 80 some pages of this book I read were thankfully very readable and approachable and served their purposes well in providing me with some much needed context regarding the place of the chronicle in Elizabethan society.