Reviewed by:

• When Novels Were Books by Jordan Alexander Stein
• Annika Mann (bio)

What do eighteenth-century scholars make of the fact that, as Jordan Alexander Stein’s crisp, refreshing monograph reminds us, “Novels were also books” (6)? For Stein, not nearly enough. When Novels Were Books asks its readers to reorient themselves to an historical period when reading relied as much on format as on contents, as much on design as on cultural encouragement (or injunction). To achieve this reorientation, Stein reminds his readers of the physical properties and international circulation of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books, especially those printed in octavo, duodecimo, or sextodecimo, which “could easily fit into a pocket, making them the kind of books one could carry around and peruse in a spare moment” (56). Stein places before our eyes something he believes “would have been fairly obvious to eighteenth-century readers” (3): the way format announces genre in printed books before the [End Page 480] nineteenth century. The payoff for this reminder comes in our newfound capacity to perceive the formal resemblances among texts that already share design features, particularly Protestant writing and prose fiction. Stein’s own book is a clarifying, pleasurable read, one that offers a model for how attention to a period’s larger media ecology can unstick adherence to anachronistic categories.

In four chapters and a short conclusion, Stein advances three ambitious theses: first, that the emphasis on reading for character associated with the genre of the novel is found initially in Protestant confessional and soteriological writings. The form of character derived from those writings is, for Stein, a “negative figuration” (10) found first in Augustine— dispossessed and vulnerable before God (chapters 1 and 3). Second, Stein contends that the shift from discontinuous to continuous reading that occurs at the turn of the eighteenth century coincides with the centrality of reading for this vulnerable character across a range of texts—fictional and biographical, secular and not (chapter 2). Following from the first two theses, Stein contends that “novels were not historically secular” (9), and only came to be seen as such because of the eventual separation of and competition from religious publishing that occurs in the 1790s (chapters 3 and 4). While Stein’s timeline for the consolidation of what was only belatedly termed “the novel” in the late eighteenth century would not surprise scholars of the genre, his attention to shifts in religious publishing reveals a new and important actor during that period of canonization. And When Novels Were Books as a whole amply displays the widely shared terrain (material and formal) of eighteenth-century Protestant writings and prose fiction.

Chapter 2, “The Character of Steady Sellers,” which was my favourite chapter, forms the heart of Stein’s subtle historical argument, one that convincingly favours continuity over sudden transformation. Chapter 2 details how discontinuous reading was encouraged by the format of seventeenth-century devotional texts, which remained in print because of reliable, continuous sales. As Stein explains, like Bibles, steady sellers were codexes that featured ornamental designs inviting readers to dip in and out of the text. Yet, while this encouragement might put the reader in control, Stein argues that this control is mitigated since readers were instructed to read “as if they were sent down from God to the reader” (72). These injunctions create a vulnerable, diminished reader. Ultimately, Stein assigns no single cause to the transition from discontinuous to continuous reading that occurs toward the end of the seventeenth century, but suggests steady sellers “accommodate” (79) this kind of reading by presenting more narrative plots, even as they retain their goal of readerly salvation via the negatively figured character. Stein illustrates that both [End Page 481] The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and Robinson Crusoe (1719) combine the new trend toward continuous reading via narrative progression with this established, vulnerable character. In the chapter’s final twist, we see Crusoe anew: Stein argues it is only the way Crusoe mutates—in high volume sales, in serials, and in remediations—that makes it seem as if Crusoe belongs to the genre...

审核人：

• 当小说是乔丹·亚历山大·斯坦的书
• 安妮卡·曼（Annika Mann）

约旦·亚历山大·斯坦因清脆而令人耳目一新的专着使我们想起“小说也是书”（十六），十八世纪的学者如何理解这一事实？对于斯坦来说，还远远不够。小说当书要求读者在阅读时不仅要依靠形式，要靠内容，要靠设计，还要靠文化鼓励（或禁令）来重新适应一个历史时期。为了实现这种重新定位，斯坦因让读者想起了十七世纪和十八世纪的书籍的物理特性和国际流通情况，尤其是用八度，十二度或六十年代印刷的书籍，这些书籍“很容易装入口袋，使它们成为一种一本书可以随身携带和细读”（56）。斯坦因将一些他认为“对18世纪的读者来说相当明显”的东西摆在我们眼前（3）：格式在[End Page 480]之前宣布印刷书籍的体裁的方式十九世纪。这项提醒的收益来自于我们新发现的能力，即可以感知已经具有设计特征的文本之间的形式相似之处，特别是新教徒的写作和散文小说。斯坦因自己的书是一本清晰易读的书，为人们提供了一个模型，该模型说明了对某个时期更大的媒体生态学的关注如何使人们对过时的类别保持依从。

在四章和一个简短的结论中，斯坦提出了三个雄心勃勃的论文：首先，最初在新教的悔和社会学著作中发现了对与小说体裁相关的性格的重视。对于斯坦来说，从这些著作中衍生出来的品格形式是一种“负形”（10），首先出现在奥古斯丁身上，在上帝面前被剥夺并且脆弱（第1章和第3章）。其次，斯坦因认为，十八世纪初从不连续阅读向连续阅读的转变与这一脆弱人物在小说，传记，传记，非世俗而非小说等一系列文本中的阅读中心性相吻合。根据前两个论点，斯坦因坚称“小说在历史上不是世俗的”（9），之所以被视为如此，是因为最终在1790年代发生了宗教出版活动并将其与宗教出版活动区分开来（第3章和第4章）。虽然斯坦因巩固在18世纪后期才被称为“小说”的时间表并不会让该类型的学者感到惊讶，但他对宗教出版方式转变的关注揭示了在正典化时期这一新的重要角色。和当《小说被整体书籍》充分展示了十八世纪新教徒著作和散文小说的广泛共享的地域（物质的和形式的）。

我最喜欢的一章，第2章“稳定的销售者的性格”构成了斯坦因微妙的历史论证的核心，这一论点令人信服地主张连续性胜过突然的转变。第2章详细介绍了17世纪灵修文本的格式如何鼓励不连续阅读，该文本由于可靠，连续的销售而得以保留。正如斯坦因（Stein）所解释的那样，就像圣经一样，稳定的销售商是具有装饰性设计的法典，邀请读者进入和浸入文本。然而，尽管这种鼓励可能会使读者处于控制之中，但斯坦因认为这种控制有所减轻，因为指示读者阅读“好像他们被从上帝那里降下来交给读者”（72）。这些禁令会造成脆弱的阅读者。最终，斯坦因并没有给出从十七世纪末开始的从不连续阅读到连续阅读的过渡的唯一原因，但建议稳定的卖家通过呈现更多的叙事情节来“容纳”这种阅读（79），即使他们保留了自己的观点。通过消极的人物来拯救读者的目标。斯坦（Stein）指出[ 朝圣页尾]（1678年）和鲁滨逊·克鲁索（1719年）都结合了通过叙事进行不断阅读的新趋势和这个既定的脆弱角色。在本章的最后转折中，我们看到了克鲁索重新：斯坦因认为，克鲁索只有通过大量销售，连续剧和整改的方式进行变异，才使克鲁索似乎属于这一流派。