Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Text/Image Cultures

This project, jointly funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, began in May 2024 with the aim of exploring the characteristics of early modern instructional litertaure, or 'how-to books'.

Practical information on distillation, medicine, dyeing, cosmetics, ceramics, metallurgy and many other topics flooded the book market in the century that followed the introduction of printing to Europe. These how-to books were a popular genre, often enjoying many editions and containing recipes and advice that were perpetuated for generations. Yet several key questions remain to be answered about the phenomenon of the how-to book.

• What are the characteristic elements of a how-to book?
• Why were these books so popular? 
• How did early modern people learn skills from books?

This project address these questions by exploring the fullest range of early modern European how-to books, with particular focus on the outstanding Ferguson Collection at Glasgow University Library, and the equally rich holdings of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

Find out more about the project, its outputs, and other news & events here. 

How-to books are texts that offer instruction on everyday tasks. The range of problems handled by early modern how-to books was vast, covering everything from arithmetic to drawing, cosmetics to pest control, metallurgy to magic.

Identifying the key characteristics of the how-to book is one of the core aims of this project, but there are some which are immediately apparent: 

• Practical subjects. How-to books tend to focus on everyday practical problems that readers can solve themselves.
• Imperative language. How-to texts demand action with imperative verbs such as 'take' (hence the project name, 'Take Me and Make it Happen!').
• Procedural steps. In how-to books, knowledge is conveyed through through set procedures, rules or algorithms which guide the reader step by step in performing practical tasks.
• Text/image interaction. Many how-to books instruct not simply through words, but using diagrams and illustrations which offer snapshots of practical tasks at particular phases of completion. 

Tracts of Action: Material, Visual, and Practical Dimensions of Early Modern How-to Books, edited by Stefan Laube, was published in July 2024 following a conference in Wolfenbüttel in 2021. 

The volume brings together historians, literary scholars, linguists and librarians in exploring aspects of the early modern European how-to book, addressing questions about their production, ownership and use in a wide range of contexts.

Billy Grove, Professor of French and Text/Image Studies, University of Glasgow

Stefan Laube, Adjunct Professor of Cultural Studies and History, Humboldt University Berlin

Alina Lange, Research Assistant, Herzog August Bibliothek

James Fox, Research Assistant, University of Glasgow

Hartmut Beyer, Head of Department of Rare Books, Herzog August Bibliothek

Robert MacLean, Assistant Librarian (Library Services), University of Glasgow

Christoph Boveland, Deputy Head of Department of Old Prints, Herzog August Bibliothek

Holger Bühring, Librarian, Department of Old Prints, Herzog August Bibliothek

Leo Konstantelos, Head of Collections, Discovery & Systems (Library Services), University of Glasgow

Luis Gomes, Senior Lecturer (Portuguese), University of Glasgow

Lucinda Thompson, Project Coordinator, University of Glasgow

Elaine Wilson, Assistant Project Coordinator, University of Glasgow