Includes bibliographical references and index.

Reading and its consequences -- Economic characteristics of the printed book industry ; Intellectual property ; Anthologies, abridgment, and the development of commercial vested interests in prolonging the obsolete ; The high monopoly period in England ; The explosion of reading ; The old canon ; Shakespeare ; Literary production in the Romantic period ; Manufacturing ; Selling, prices, and access ; Romance ; Reading constituencies ; Horizons of expectations ; 'Those vile French piracies' ; 'Preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows' ; At the boundaries of the reading nation ; Frankenstein ; North America ; Reading, reception, and dissemination ; The romantic poets in the Victorian age ; The political economy of reading.

Appendices: Markets, book production, prices, and print runs ; Intellectual property and textual controls : custom, law and practice ; Intellectual property : rights of authors and performers, anthologies and aridgements ; Intellectual property : popular literature, England ; Book costs, prices, and margins : romantic period and later ; The old canon ; Romantic period : book production arranged by literary genre ; Periodicals ; Romantic period : authors and texts : publishing histories, prices, print runs, and sales ; Libraries and reading societies ; Pirate and radical publishers and publications ; Shakespeare ; The romantic poets in Victorian times.

From the earliest days of printing, those engaged in politics, education & literature believed that reading helped shape the minds, attitudes & actions of readers. St Clair investigates how the national culture can be understood through a study of the books that were read during the Romantic period & the Victorian age which followed.