{"product_id":"the-invention-of-rare-books","title":"The Invention of Rare Books","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen does a book that is merely old become a rarity and an object of desire? David McKitterick examines, for the first time, the development of the idea of rare books, and why they matter. Studying examples from across Europe, he explores how this idea took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how collectors, the book trade and libraries gradually came together to identify canons that often remain the same today. In a world that many people found to be over-supplied with books, the invention of rare books was a process of selection. As books are one of the principal means of memory, this process also created particular kinds of remembering. Taking a European perspective, McKitterick looks at these interests as they developed from being matters of largely private concern and curiosity, to the larger public and national responsibilities of the first half of the nineteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe first study of the development of the idea of rare books from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eExplores how rare books evolved over time from being objects of largely private interest to become public and even national concerns (in the first half of the nineteenth century)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAn important new work by one of the world's leading scholars of books and their history\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Cambridge University Press Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56741799297410,"sku":"9781108449335","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0475\/2031\/7597\/files\/9781108449335i.jpg?v=1782939297","url":"https:\/\/www.cambridgebookshop.co.uk\/products\/the-invention-of-rare-books","provider":"Cambridge University Press Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}