As early as 1621, on the subject of the great proliferation of printed material in his time, the bibliophile Robert Burton was already writing: “Who is such a greedy glutton for books?, who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.” Imagine how we feel, Robert!
A fun question and a clear answer. A thought occurred to me: whoever did this would have to be quite rich and well-connected to either buy or borrow all these books. So when we ask 'Could anyone literally do this?' we simply have to look through the list of wealthy individuals in England at the time. I doubt if there were more than a thousand individuals who had the means and opportunity to do so.
The issue is that all those people who could have done this would certainly have been fluent in other languages like Latin, and would probably have mostly been reading non-English texts. There were way more non-English texts
I'd love more of your long form work, it's a topic I know very little about and a curated dip into rare, important and interesting books, book related topics and frankly whatever you want to show us! Thank you for your work, already a channel I keenly follow.
Even the idea of so few books being printed is kind of mind boggling in this world of mass-production and print-on demand, when in reality it’s amazing that humans ever read he’s a point where we can print and distribute so many books!
Would be good to have a list... a representative from every genre and then follow ups in those that stir you. Too late really now to start....I'll never know what I've missed.
Listen, can you help me with list of books? Like really long list with all known writers and books? Somewhere before the twentieth or nineteenth century, because that's when there are very, very many books. But you have told so much about the number of books published, maybe you know sites with lists? And I really need all the books published in a year. Let's say all the books published (or found manuscripts and letters) for the year 1641 or 1423. Please
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Oh my I’m so behind.
As early as 1621, on the subject of the great proliferation of printed material in his time, the bibliophile Robert Burton was already writing: “Who is such a greedy glutton for books?, who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.” Imagine how we feel, Robert!
That this dilemma has been in our lives since 1530 is comforting in a way.
A fun question and a clear answer. A thought occurred to me: whoever did this would have to be quite rich and well-connected to either buy or borrow all these books. So when we ask 'Could anyone literally do this?' we simply have to look through the list of wealthy individuals in England at the time. I doubt if there were more than a thousand individuals who had the means and opportunity to do so.
The issue is that all those people who could have done this would certainly have been fluent in other languages like Latin, and would probably have mostly been reading non-English texts. There were way more non-English texts
Also printing press owners. They would have been friends with other printing press owners. And book shop sellers...librarians..scholars
That's actually a really interesting thought if someone like that actually existed
I'd love more of your long form work, it's a topic I know very little about and a curated dip into rare, important and interesting books, book related topics and frankly whatever you want to show us! Thank you for your work, already a channel I keenly follow.
Enter the speed reader.
Even the idea of so few books being printed is kind of mind boggling in this world of mass-production and print-on demand, when in reality it’s amazing that humans ever read he’s a point where we can print and distribute so many books!
One a week?!!!!
Sheesh! For years i would read an average novel per DAY.
VERY cool!
Would be good to have a list... a representative from every genre and then follow ups in those that stir you. Too late really now to start....I'll never know what I've missed.
What about someone who can read a book per day?
When does the yearly output hit 365?
Listen, can you help me with list of books? Like really long list with all known writers and books?
Somewhere before the twentieth or nineteenth century, because that's when there are very, very many books. But you have told so much about the number of books published, maybe you know sites with lists? And I really need all the books published in a year. Let's say all the books published (or found manuscripts and letters) for the year 1641 or 1423. Please
So, no. Duh. Tom had fun with the question, but the answer is obviously no.
The question is " was it ever possible..." at one time it was possible. The answer is Yes.
@@gavinreid2741 Fair point.