Studying at history at degree level often means that I fall over little facts and pieces of information that really do relate to our modern world. That is exactly what happened whilst  I was reading for a seminar about early modern Europe. As you are all probably aware of by now, I really love talking about two things on this blog: history and books. I’ve always wanted to talk about the history surrounding books and our consumption of literature, and my little discovery has given me that opportunity!

When reading a book of any kind, I like to know who the author is and a little bit about them. I suppose it helps me to understand the context that they were writing in and their motivations. Looking at the authors biography on the back page of a book is therefore crucial to my reading experience.  Today it would feel strange not to have that information to hand, but prior to the sixteenth century, author biographies were simply not the norm.

The renowned early modern Historian Peter Burke argues that the Renaissance (a time when all things classical and related to the individual came to the forefront of society) prompted the introduction of author biographies. In a world where people were starting to value their own individuality and expose it to the public eye, there was also a growing demand to learn more about an individual’s life. This translated into every corner of early modern life, including literature.

“It became increasingly common to provide famous books with an introductory biography of the author, as if his life was key to his work.” (Burke, Representations of the Self from Petrarch to Descartes, 1997)

Our modern day books therefore owe their biographies to the rise of the individual in Renaissance Europe. Authors once shrouded in mystery were becoming more and more open to revealing their past successes, their personal lives and their image. Without this development, both reading for pleasure and reading literature for academic/critical means would not be as easy as it is today.

Beth x