Introduction: The Manuscript Book in the Long Eighteenth Century

This special issue of Eighteenth-Century Life on the manuscript book is, first and foremost, a celebration of the sheer vitality, variety, and cultural significance of scribal book production in the transatlantic anglophone world of the long eighteenth century. As the eleven essays in this issue begin to demonstrate, manuscript books—from the blank paper-books or notebooks marketed by stationers, to the receipt books, commonplace books, poetry compilations, music books, technical manuals, commemorative collections, and albums created from them—were a common material manifestation of becoming educated, exploring the world, ordering knowledge, living a literary life, and fashioning the self during the long eighteenth century.¹ They were often created with an intentionality, method, and craft that speak to a highly developed culture of making, copying, adapting, and ordering text in the age of commodified print. And perhaps more surprisingly, despite long-standing assumptions about manuscript book-making as a practice of elite coteries or...