Printer's devil
Subtitle: Mark Twain and the American publishing revolution
By: Bruce Michelson.
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Berkeley
Language: eng
Number of pages: 299
Subjects: Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Knowledge -- Printing.; Printing in literature.; Printing -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Publishers and publishing -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Authors and publishers -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Description: "Trained as a printer while still a boy, and thrilled throughout his life by the automation of printing and the headlong expansion of American publishing, Mark Twain wrote about the consequences of this technological revolution for culture and personal identity. Printer's Devil is the first book to explore these themes in some of Twain's best-known literary works and in his most daring speculations on American society, the modern condition, and the nature of the self. Playfully and anxiously, Twain often thought about typeset words and published images as powerful forces for political and moral change, personal riches and ruin, and epistemological turmoil. In his later years, Twain wrote about the printing press as a center of meta-physical power, a force that could alter the fabric of reality. Studying these themes in Mark Twain's writings, Bruce Michelson also provides a fascinating overview of the technological changes that transformed the American printing and publishing industries during Twain's lifetime, changes that opened new possibilities for content, for speed of production, for the size and diversity of a potential audience, and for international fame. The story of Twain's life and art amid this media revolution is a story with powerful implications for our own time, as we ride another wave of radical change for printed texts, authors, truth, and consciousness."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Sam Clemens and the printed word; title: The mischief of the press; title: "But now everybody goes everywhere"; title: Huckleberry Finn and the American print revolution; title: Mark Twain and the information age; title: Afterword : Mark Twain for the next fifteen minutes.