Impressions of the past: print culture and typography in South Asia

Graham Shaw

• • •

With a foreword by Swapan Chakravorty
and an afterword by Fiona Ross

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Impressions of the past: print culture and typography in South Asia

Graham Shaw

• • •

With a foreword by Swapan Chakravorty
and an afterword by Fiona Ross

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ABOUT THE BOOK

This book brings together over three decades of research by one of the foremost historians and bibliographers of early South Asian printing. In thirty essays, the book argues for, and provides, rigorous groundwork for book history and typographic research in various languages and scripts of India.

Graham Shaw’s essays on Indian print history, collected together for the first time in this volume, were originally published from the 1970s to the 1990s: in half a dozen countries, in sixteen different journals and books, some well-known, others now difficult to find. These essays represent a broad range of historical research, extending over detailed examinations of key personalities, presses, and processes related to early printing in the Indian subcontinent as well as activities in the governmental and evangelical realms. The essays have been fully revised and updated, and augmented with numerous illustrations of the material discussed within them for the first time. In addition to making foundational research in the field more widely accessible, the book offers a fresh glimpse into the visual and typographical range of early printing in various Indian scripts.

Impressions of the past: print culture and typography in South Asia
GRAHAM SHAW

£30.00

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This volume is set for release in 2024
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Full-colour illustrations

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FROM THE FOREWORD

Graham Shaw belongs to the rare breed of writers who are able to communicate the thrill of discovery that bibliography and book history bring to the researcher.

  
This is the special gift that has enabled Shaw to make the smooth transition from bibliographical research to the history of printing in South Asia, and to the larger dimensions of book history in the region – a stupendous range stretching from typography in countless scripts to the sociology of dissemination and reception of texts. […] All readers and admirers of Shaw would feel grateful for this collection.
  

Swapan Chakravorty

has been Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Presidency University, Kolkata, has served as Professor of English, Jadavpur University, Director General of the National Library of India, and Secretary & Curator of Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata

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CONTENTS OVERVIEW

See the detailed list of contents for the book with all essay titles

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Read an extract from the introduction to the book by Graham Shaw

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FROM THE AFTERWORD

There is no doubt that these essays will fulfil Graham Shaw’s hope that they ‘act as a stimulus to new lines of investigation’.

  
Aside from their highly informative detailed content these essays serve to underline the importance of critically informed and grounded historical enquiry, pointing to many worthwhile but as yet unexplored areas of research. Above all, this collection of essays celebrates precisely what Graham in a different context has described as ‘the multiplicity of regional print cultures’.

Fiona Ross

is a typeface designer, Professor, and Curator of the Non-Latin Type Collection at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, UK

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graham Shaw is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He was formerly Head of the Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections at the British Library. Among his many achievements are leading the ‘Collect Britain’ project, the British Library’s largest digitisation initiative at that time, and devising and directing the Endangered Archives Programme for its first five years.

In 2010 Graham Shaw retired from the British Library, having been Head of the Library’s Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections (APAC) for over twenty years. Trained as an Indologist, he graduated in Hindi and Sanskrit in 1969 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS). 
As Head of APAC, he managed many international partnerships and projects, with the National Libraries of Iraq, Iran, India, Indonesia and China, the National Archives of India, the National Documentation Centre, Pakistan, the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, the University of Chicago Library, and the University of Washington (Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project). In 2003 he led the Library’s then largest digitization project ‘Collect Britain’, and in 2005 developed the Endangered Archives Programme funded by Arcadia. In 2007 he was Lead Curator of the Library’s major exhibition, ‘Sacred’, exploring the book traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
  For the past thirty years he has researched the history of printing and publishing in South Asia, from the 16th to the 20th centuries. His published works include Printing in Calcutta to 1800 and The South Asia and Burma Retrospective Bibliography (SABREB): Stage-1, 1556–1800.

Impressions of the past: print culture and typography in South Asia
GRAHAM SHAW

£30.00

Purchase below with debit/credit cards, or email us to order through other methods.

This volume is set for release in 2024
PRE-ORDER your copy here
Paperback · 170×240 mm
Full-colour illustrations

Quantity:

Add To Cart