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Tracts of Action
Material, Visual, and Practical Dimensions of Early Modern How-to Books
Series: - Library of the Written Word, Volume: 127
- Library of the Written Word - The Handpress World, Volume: 127
Volume Editor:
This volume offers the user a guide to the neglected field of how-to books. How do I make soap? How do I dye textiles? What ingredients do I need for an effective remedy? Practical information of this kind, on distillation, medicine, dyeing, cosmetics, glassmaking, ceramics, metallurgy and many other subjects flooded the book market in the first centuries of printing. As varied as these subjects may be, they provoke a number of research questions: How does one learn practical skills from a book? Why were these books so popular, who used them and how, and can they even be considered a clearly defined genre?
The aim of this volume is to establish which patterns characterise the genre of how-to books. It also aims to contribute to the clarification of terms for a genre that operates under labels such as âbooks of secretsâ and "recipe books."
Some key issues addressed in this volume are traces of book use, the media shift from manuscript to print, the interaction between text and image, and the praxeological dimension of practical books. Self-help literature made it possible for interested laypersons to obtain information from all possible fields of knowledge, largely independent of institutional and educational environments. As "tracts for action," they differed from other genres in that they were consistently oriented towards implementation.
The aim of this volume is to establish which patterns characterise the genre of how-to books. It also aims to contribute to the clarification of terms for a genre that operates under labels such as âbooks of secretsâ and "recipe books."
Some key issues addressed in this volume are traces of book use, the media shift from manuscript to print, the interaction between text and image, and the praxeological dimension of practical books. Self-help literature made it possible for interested laypersons to obtain information from all possible fields of knowledge, largely independent of institutional and educational environments. As "tracts for action," they differed from other genres in that they were consistently oriented towards implementation.
Stefan Laube is Professor of Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University Berlin. He has published a wide range of monographs and articles, including Der Mensch und seine Dinge. Eine Geschichte der Zivilisation, erzählt von 64 Dingen (Hanser, 2020)
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: How-to Books â the Birth and Development of an Understudied Genre
âStefan Laube
1 Can There Ever Be Clueless Advice Books? Remarks on Plague Tracts
âStefan Laube
2 âTakeâ, âDoâ, âCheckâ: Readers and Uses of Early Modern How-to Books in the Collection of the Herzog August Bibliothek
âPetra Feuerstein-Herz
3 Who Owned the Margarita Philosophica and How Was It Read?
A Survey of the Sixteenth-Century Copies in the University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections
âRobert MacLean
4 Text â Medium â Recording System: Recipes in Books
âSven Limbeck
5 A Commerce of Secrets: Digital and Performative Approaches to an Early Modern How-to Manuscript at the Making and Knowing Project
âTillmann Taape
6 Compilation Networks: Making Early Modern Books of Secrets
âSimone Zweifel
7 How to Fly? Some Thoughts on a Windy Skill
âLaurence Grove and Stefan Laube
8 Playing with Recipe Conventions in Den sack der consten
âAndrea van Leerdam
9 âThatâs How You Do It!â or Better not? Early Modern Recipes and Their Readers
âLaura Balbiani
10 Smelling Good While Conjuring the Spirits
Use of âPerfumesâ in Medieval and Early Modern Magic Books
âSergei Zotov
11 The Duchessâs Medicine Chest: Prescriptions and Medicines for Sophia of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1522â1575)
âBritta-Juliane Kruse
Index
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: How-to Books â the Birth and Development of an Understudied Genre
âStefan Laube
1 Can There Ever Be Clueless Advice Books? Remarks on Plague Tracts
âStefan Laube
Part 1: Materiality and Traces of Use
2 âTakeâ, âDoâ, âCheckâ: Readers and Uses of Early Modern How-to Books in the Collection of the Herzog August Bibliothek
âPetra Feuerstein-Herz
3 Who Owned the Margarita Philosophica and How Was It Read?
A Survey of the Sixteenth-Century Copies in the University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections
âRobert MacLean
Part 2: Entanglements of Jotted, Printed and Digital Steps
4 Text â Medium â Recording System: Recipes in Books
âSven Limbeck
5 A Commerce of Secrets: Digital and Performative Approaches to an Early Modern How-to Manuscript at the Making and Knowing Project
âTillmann Taape
6 Compilation Networks: Making Early Modern Books of Secrets
âSimone Zweifel
Part 3: Text and Image Simultaneity
7 How to Fly? Some Thoughts on a Windy Skill
âLaurence Grove and Stefan Laube
8 Playing with Recipe Conventions in Den sack der consten
âAndrea van Leerdam
Part 4: Prescription and Improvisation
9 âThatâs How You Do It!â or Better not? Early Modern Recipes and Their Readers
âLaura Balbiani
10 Smelling Good While Conjuring the Spirits
Use of âPerfumesâ in Medieval and Early Modern Magic Books
âSergei Zotov
11 The Duchessâs Medicine Chest: Prescriptions and Medicines for Sophia of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1522â1575)
âBritta-Juliane Kruse
Index
Those with an interest in practical, lucid, and achievable knowledge across various domains. This includes but is not limited to craftsmanship, healthcare, alchemy, and distillation, as well as media and book studies.