Reading and the Making of Time in the Eighteenth Century Christina Lupton

"The idea that there is a relation between media and time is a familiar one. It is often said that digital technologies have quickened the pace at which we consume information in the modern world. In Christina Lupton's Reading and the Making of Time in the Eighteenth Century, she looks back to the eighteenth century to demonstrate the ways in which the emerging print culture and modes of reading and writing affected the experience and understanding of time. Placing canonical works by Jane Austen, Elizabeth Inchbald, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Johnson alongside those of lesser known authors and readers, Lupton approaches books as objects that are good at attracting particular forms of attention. In contrast to the digital interfaces of our own moment and the newspapers and pamphlets read during the period, books are rarely seen as shaping or keeping modern time. However, Lupton argues that books are often put down and picked up at regular times, they are leafed through as well as read sequentially, and they are handed on as objects designed to bridge distances. In showing how discourse itself engages with these material practices, Lupton makes the case that reading is something to be studied textually as well as historically" -- Provided by publisher.