Over the seven years that this book was in the making,
I’ve accumulated a fair number of debts of gratitude. The notion of writing a history of reading began with an attempt to write an essay; Catherine Yolles suggested that the subject deserved a whole book — my gratitude to her for her confidence.
Thanks to my editors — Louise Dennys, most gracious of readers, whose friendship has supported me since the faraway days of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places; Nan Graham, who stood by the book at the very beginning, and Courtney Hodell, whose enthusiasm accompanied it to the end; Philip Gwyn Jones, whose encouragement helped me read on through difficult passages.
Painstakingly and with Sherlockian skill, Gena Gorrell and Beverley Beetham Endersby copyedited my manuscript: to them my thanks, as usual. Paul Hodgson designed the book with intelligent care. My agents Jennifer Barclay and Bruce Westwood kept wolves, bank managers and tax collectors from my door.
A number of friends made kind suggestions — Marina Warner, Giovanna Franci, Dee Fagin, Ana Becciú, Greg Gatenby,
Carmen Criado, Stan Persky, Simone Vauthier. Professor Amos Luzzatto, Professor Roch Lecours, M. Hubert Meyer and Fr. F.A. Black generously agreed to read and correct a few individual chapters; the errors remaining are all my own. Sybel Ayse Tuzlac did some of the early research. My heartfelt thanks to the library staff who dug out odd books for me and patiently answered my unacademic questions at the Metro Toronto Reference Library, Robarts Library, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library — all in Toronto — Bob Foley and the staff of the library at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Bibliothèque Humaniste in Sélestat, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, the American Library in Paris, the Bibliothèque de l’Université de Strasbourg, the Bibliothèque Municipale in Colmar, the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the London Library and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. I also wish to thank the Maclean Hunter Arts Journalism Programme and the Banff Centre for the Arts, and Pages Bookstore in Calgary, where parts of this book were first read.
It would have been impossible for me to complete this book without financial assistance from the pre-Harris Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council, as well as from the George Woodcock fund.
In memoriam Jonathan Warner, whose support and advice I very much miss.