Theatre of the Book 1480-1880 Print, Text and Performance in Europe [Paperback]

Theatre of the Bookexplores the impact of printing on the European theater, 1480-1880. Far from being marginal to Renaissance dramatists, the printing press played an essential role in the birth of the modern theater. Looking at playtexts, engravings, actor portraits, notation systems, and theatrical ephemera as part of the broader history of theatrical ideas, this illustrated book offers both a history of European dramatic publication and an examination of the European theater's continual refashioning of itself in the world of print.

Introduction
I: PRINTING THE DRAMA
1. Experimenting on the page, 1480-1630
2. Drama as institution, 1630-1760
3. Illustrations, promptbooks, stage texts, 1760-1880
II: THEATRE IMPRIMATUR
4. Reinventing 'theatre' via the printing press
5. Critical law, theatrical licence
6. Accurate texts, authoritative editions
III THE SENSES OF MEDIA
7. The sense of the senses: sounds, gesture and the body on stage
8. Narrative form and theatrical illusions
9. Framing space: time, perspective, and motion in the image
IV: THE COMMERCE OF LETTERS
10. Dramatists, poets, and other scribblers
11. Who owns the play? Pirate, plagiarist, imitator, thief
12. Making it public
V: THEATRICAL IMPRESSIONS
13. Scenic pictures
14. Actor/author
15. A theatre too much with us
Epilogue
Notes
Works Cited
Index

This book is an example of some of the exciting work being undertaken in the growing field of book history.... It is an important contribution to the understanding of the impact and legacy of the printing press.... Eminently scholarly and subtly argued.... Scholars in a variety of fields...will welcome this book as an engaging starting point for research at the intersection of historical bibliography, the history of communication, theatre history, and dramatic theory. --Sixteenth Cenlă