Born in London in 1946, Martyn Lyons took his doctorate at Oxford University. He has been a faculty member at UNSW since 1977 and was Head of the School of History 1991–1994. He has published several books and articles in two fields: French revolutionary and Napoleonic history and the history of the book and of reading and writing practices in modern Europe and Australia. Some of his major books include: Le Triomphe du Livre: une histoire sociologique de la lecture dans la France du 19e siécle, Promodis, 1987
Martyn Lyons surveys the changing relationships enjoyed by men and women with the written word, f... more Martyn Lyons surveys the changing relationships enjoyed by men and women with the written word, from early times to the present day. He provides a highly-readable account of the social history of reading and writing, relating it to key historical moments such as the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Offering a fresh history centred on the reactions and experiences of ordinary readers and writers, Lyons deals with key turning points that occurred throughout the centuries, such as the invention of the codex, the transition from scribal to print culture, the reading revolution and the industrialisation of the book. Tracing the major historical developments across Europe and North America which revolutionised our relationship with texts, this book provides an engaging and invaluable overview of the history of scribal and print culture.
Martyn Lyons surveys the changing relationships enjoyed by men and women with the written word, f... more Martyn Lyons surveys the changing relationships enjoyed by men and women with the written word, from early times to the present day. He provides a highly-readable account of the social history of reading and writing, relating it to key historical moments such as the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Offering a fresh history centred on the reactions and experiences of ordinary readers and writers, Lyons deals with key turning points that occurred throughout the centuries, such as the invention of the codex, the transition from scribal to print culture, the reading revolution and the industrialisation of the book. Tracing the major historical developments across Europe and North America which revolutionised our relationship with texts, this book provides an engaging and invaluable overview of the history of scribal and print culture.
'The common writer in modern history' highlights the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in... more 'The common writer in modern history' highlights the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in history, emphasising the voices of the subordinate classes and contesting conventional histories that treat them as passive or silent. In eleven new studies by leading historians of scribal culture, this book foregrounds the 'common writer' and contributes to a 'new history from below', which attempts to give agency to those often marginalised by grand historical narratives. In presenting ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers' and emigrants' correspondence and graffiti in streets and prisons, it opens up the possibility of an alternative history which contrasts with conventional top-down accounts told from the perspective of elites.The volume focuses on the concerns and assumptions of the the so-called silent masses and finds them to have been not so silent after all. It explores neglected writing which provides an insight into the cultural universe of the poor, the mental world of the soldier and the personal struggles of the young emigrant or pauper. The contributors draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They cover a broad geographical and chronological range to assess the functions and purposes of writing from below. The collection demonstrates the crucial importance of writing in the past for people of modest social status and imperfect literary competence, It suggests that ordinary writers can be seen as active agents in their own history, rather than as passive receptacles for official ideologies.
The common writer in modern history spotlights the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in h... more The common writer in modern history spotlights the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in history, emphasising the agency and voices of the subordinate classes and contesting conventional histories that treat them as passive or silent.
In eleven new studies by thirteen leading historians of scribal culture, this book foregrounds the ‘common writer’ and contributes to a ‘New History from Below’, which attempts to give voice and agency to those often marginalised by grand historical narratives. In presenting ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers’ and emigrants’ correspondence and graffiti in streets and prisons, it opens up the possibility of an alternative history which contrasts with conventional top-down accounts told from the perspective of elites. The volume focusses on the concerns and assumptions of the so-called silent masses and finds them to have been not so silent after all. It explores neglected writing which provides an insight into the cultural universe of the poor, the mental world of the soldier and the personal struggles of the young emigrant or pauper.
The contributors draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They cover a broad geographical and chronological range to assess the functions and purposes of writings from below. The collection demonstrates the crucial importance of writing in the past for people of modest social status and imperfect literacy competence. It suggests that ordinary writers can be seen as active agents in their own history, rather than as passive receptacles for official ideologies.
This Palgrave Pivot examines the history of literacy with illiterate and semi-literate people in ... more This Palgrave Pivot examines the history of literacy with illiterate and semi-literate people in mind, and questions the clear division between literacy and illiteracy which has often been assumed by social and economic historians. Instead, it turns the spotlight on all those in-between, the millions who had some literacy skills, but for whom reading and writing posed difficulties. Its main focus is on those we have often labelled ‘illiterates’, rather than those who enjoyed full competence in reading and writing in modern society. In offering a historical perspective on the ‘problem’ of illiteracy in the modern world, it also questions some enduring myths surrounding the phenomenon. This book therefore has a revisionist objective: it intends to challenge conventional wisdom about illiteracy.
This book captures the intensity of the relationship between writers and their typewriters from... more This book captures the intensity of the relationship between writers and their typewriters from the 1880s, when the machine was first commercialized, to the 1980s, when word-processing superseded it. Drawing on examples from the United States, Britain, Europe, and Australia, The Typewriter Century focuses on "celebrity writers," including Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Georges Simenon, and Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote prolifically and mechanically, developing routines in which typing, handwriting, and dictation were each allotted important functions.
The typewriter de-personalized the text; the office typewriter bureaucratized it. At the same time, some authors found a new and disturbing distance between themselves and their compositions while others believed the typewriter facilitated spontaneous and automatic typing. The Typewriter Century provides a cultural history of the typewriter, outlining the ways in which it can be considered an agent of change as well as demonstrating how it influenced all writers, canonical and otherwise.
This original study examines different incarnations of the Pyrenees, beginning with the assumptio... more This original study examines different incarnations of the Pyrenees, beginning with the assumptions of 18th-century geologists, who treated the mountains like a laboratory, and romantic 19th-century tourists and habitues of the spa resorts, who went in search of the picturesque and the sublime. The book analyses the individual visions of the heroic Pyrenees which in turn fascinated 19th-century mountaineers and the racing cyclists of the Tour de France. I investigate the role of the Pyrenees during the Second World War as an escape route from Nazi-occupied France., when for thousands of refugees these dangerous borderlands became 'the mountains of liberty', and I consider the place of the Pyrenees in recent times up to the present day. Drawing on travel writing, press reports and scientific texts in several languages, 'The Pyrenees in the Modern Era' explores both the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees to provide a nuanced historical understanding of the cultural construction of one of Europe's most prominent border regions. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Europe's cultural history in a transnational context.
A medida que la guerra y la emigración masiva ensanchaban la distancia que separaba a la gente co... more A medida que la guerra y la emigración masiva ensanchaban la distancia que separaba a la gente común a fines del siglo xix y principios del xx, muchos de quienes antes apenas sabían leer y escribir comenzaron a comunicarse por medio del papel. Este relato explora cómo nacen los escritos ordinarios, cómo se enfrentaron los desafíos de la alfabetización y cómo la cultura escrita pasó a ser importante en la historia de las experiencias individuales de la Europa moderna.
At the end of the nineteenth and in the early years of the twentieth century, encou... more At the end of the nineteenth and in the early years of the twentieth century, encouraging violent criminals to write their life stories became an accepted tool of forensic medicine ... now read on
Review of Laura Martínez Martín, Voces de la ausencia: Las cartas privadas de los emigrantes astu... more Review of Laura Martínez Martín, Voces de la ausencia: Las cartas privadas de los emigrantes asturianos a América (1856-1936), Gijón (Trea), 2019, 285pp., ISBN: 9788417987862.
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In eleven new studies by leading historians of scribal culture, this book foregrounds the 'common writer' and contributes to a 'new history from below', which attempts to give agency to those often marginalised by grand historical narratives. In presenting ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers' and emigrants' correspondence and graffiti in streets and prisons, it opens up the possibility of an alternative history which contrasts with conventional top-down accounts told from the perspective of elites.The volume focuses on the concerns and assumptions of the the so-called silent masses and finds them to have been not so silent after all. It explores neglected writing which provides an insight into the cultural universe of the poor, the mental world of the soldier and the personal struggles of the young emigrant or pauper.
The contributors draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They cover a broad geographical and chronological range to assess the functions and purposes of writing from below. The collection demonstrates the crucial importance of writing in the past for people of modest social status and imperfect literary competence, It suggests that ordinary writers can be seen as active agents in their own history, rather than as passive receptacles for official ideologies.
In eleven new studies by thirteen leading historians of scribal culture, this book foregrounds the ‘common writer’ and contributes to a ‘New History from Below’, which attempts to give voice and agency to those often marginalised by grand historical narratives. In presenting ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers’ and emigrants’ correspondence and graffiti in streets and prisons, it opens up the possibility of an alternative history which contrasts with conventional top-down accounts told from the perspective of elites. The volume focusses on the concerns and assumptions of the so-called silent masses and finds them to have been not so silent after all. It explores neglected writing which provides an insight into the cultural universe of the poor, the mental world of the soldier and the personal struggles of the young emigrant or pauper.
The contributors draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They cover a broad geographical and chronological range to assess the functions and purposes of writings from below. The collection demonstrates the crucial importance of writing in the past for people of modest social status and imperfect literacy competence. It suggests that ordinary writers can be seen as active agents in their own history, rather than as passive receptacles for official ideologies.
The typewriter de-personalized the text; the office typewriter bureaucratized it. At the same time, some authors found a new and disturbing distance between themselves and their compositions while others believed the typewriter facilitated spontaneous and automatic typing. The Typewriter Century provides a cultural history of the typewriter, outlining the ways in which it can be considered an agent of change as well as demonstrating how it influenced all writers, canonical and otherwise.
Drawing on travel writing, press reports and scientific texts in several languages, 'The Pyrenees in the Modern Era' explores both the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees to provide a nuanced historical understanding of the cultural construction of one of Europe's most prominent border regions. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Europe's cultural history in a transnational context.