Abstract
This chapter on bookish spaces and interactions in and around St Paul’s opens the cathedral environs to new interpretive possibilities as a peculiarly performative space where a particular set of civic identities were formed and maintained—and, in turn, frequently exposed as false, pretentious, or downright deceptive. The early modern bookshop emerges as a site where literary imagination located competing social and commercial performances, where stationers acted (often unsuccessfully) to sell books, and readers acted (often transparently) to promote various selves. Exploring what it means for the result of these performances to be thought of as publics, and for early modern authors to have recorded in print the sense of individual public spheres sustained by these spaces, this chapter places the bookshop in a new critical framework by comparing its performances to those held in taverns and theatres.
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King-Cox, B., Smith, D.S. (2021). Buying and Selling Books Around St Paul’s Cathedral: ‘Be Dishonest, and tell Lies’. In: Altman, S., Buckner, J. (eds) Old St Paul’s and Culture. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77267-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77267-3_12
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