{"title":"Books by Martyn Lyons","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781487525736","title":"The Typewriter Century","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs a vehicle for outstanding creativity, the typewriter has been taken for granted and was, until now, a blind spot in the history of writing practices.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301192675701,"sku":"9781487525736","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781487525736_9e33f6ec-5060-4993-9dca-68bd1b62de57.jpg?v=1786022019"},{"product_id":"9781839995170","title":"The Uses of Literacy in Colonial Australia","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat did Australians read? This book answers this question in terms of books rather than newspapers and considers the long nineteenth century, interpreted as running from 1788 to 1901. In the wake of this primary question, several others arise: how did Australians acquire the books they read, and how did readers in the outback overcome the handicaps of distance and remoteness? Did they read for pleasure, instruction, self-edification, or spiritual sustenance? More importantly, how did Australian readers respond to the books they read? The evidence is drawn from autobiographical sources, in which individual readers related their personal reading experiences and responses.\u003cbr\u003eAt the same time, the book pursues a second and related question: What did Australians write? Reference is made here not to the kind of writing we know as ‘literature’, but to the non-literary writing which cultural historians call ‘ordinary writings’. These are the writings of everyday life, represented in this book by diaries, journals, hand-written newspapers and correspondence. The focus is wide enough to include the everyday cultural practices of people of low social status and little education. The writing practices of the partially literate, including writing delegated to a third party, have their place here.\u003cbr\u003eIn this double investigation, the book draws on evidence from a cohort of 101 nineteenth-century readers and writers. They are a heterogeneous group of autobiographers, coming from Melbourne and Sydney to rural Queensland and Western Australia. They come from the city and the bush, from coastal towns and the interior, from sheep stations, gold diggings and city offices. They show us the perennial importance of Shakespeare and the Bible, the popularity of the English canon, the prestige of poetry and the importance of religious reading. Books held the Empire together but, as they travelled, their meanings changed according to the local cultural environment. This book registers such nuances in the Australian context. The writing of this group is represented by some prolific diarists and correspondents. In the late-nineteenth century, the eastern colonies became world leaders in sending letters. The postal environment which made this possible is also examined.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307941605749,"sku":"9781839995170","price":80.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781839995170_25a0b9c4-979d-4399-8a8b-c61d04cc8ea1.jpg?v=1786028159"},{"product_id":"books-a-living-history","title":"Books: A Living History","description":"This ambitious volume, newly available in paperback, explores the rich history of the book, one of the most efficient, influential and enduring technologies ever invented. For more than 2,500 years, the book, in a wide range of forms, has been used to document, to educate and to entertain. The eminent authority Martyn Lyons charts its worldwide evolution through the centuries, from the cuneiform tablets of ancient Sumer through the development of moveable type and the emergence of the modern information revolution. Among the carefully selected illustrations are Maya codices, Egyptian papyrus scrolls, medieval illuminated manuscripts, masterpieces of early printing from Gutenberg and Aldus Manutius, atlases from the great age of travel and exploration, primers and children’s books, dime novels and Japanese manga, and works of fiction ranging from Don Quixote to Level 26 , the world’s first ‘digi-novel’, and beyond.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481389539701,"sku":"9780500291153","price":14.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500291153.jpg?v=1786089647"},{"product_id":"pregnancy-declarations-in-18th-century-france","title":"Pregnancy Declarations in 18th-Century France","description":"Pregnancy Declarations in 18th-century France: The Judge, the Maid and her Seducer examines pregnancy declarations (déclarations de grossesse) in eighteenth-century France, analyzing how unmarried pregnant women navigated legal requirements established by Henry II's 1556 edict that made concealing pregnancy a capital crime and created a legal presumption of infanticide if a newborn died without prior declaration.   Drawing on evidence from bailliage courts in Nevers and Evreux, supplemented by digitized archival documents from multiple French sites, the study reveals how these legal documents provide unique insights into gender relations, sexual violence, and the intimate lives of lower-class men and women. The analysis demonstrates how women's brief \"seduction narratives\", miniature ego-documents embedded within legal declarations, illuminate contemporary assumptions about sexual behaviour, female honour and shame, and the vulnerability of young women in Ancien Régime society. The book explores both the protective function of declarations as insurance against infanticide accusations and their role as preliminaries for plaintes de grossesse, legal suits for maintenance payments that positioned women as active agents seeking financial support from fathers.   This engagingly written book will interest students and specialists in eighteenth-century French history, early modern European history, gender and sexuality studies, legal history, and social history.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57536504562037,"sku":"9781041446538","price":67.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781041446538.jpg?v=1792425239"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-martyn-lyons.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}