The Human Kind: The Humanity of Print Books

10:06 AM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

It was a fairly ordinary morning in early spring, in the middle of a 9 AM lecture hall on the works of Jane Austen. Persuasion was the topic of the day, and our professors were discussing the significance of the Baronetcy, the book of nobility with which the ridiculous Sir Walter Elliot was obsessed. And then, it was time for a bit of show-and-tell.

Photo courtesy Devoney Looser
Our professor brought out this book, a real copy of a Peerage from 1836, and then allowed us to pass it around and actually leaf through the pages. Some students barely glanced at the book as it passed by- it was 9:30 AM, after all, I suppose. But this little beauty got me thinking. 

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