On “Readies” and Fore-edge Painting

Book of Common Prayer.  New York D. Appleton & Co., 1845.  Gilt fore-edge.

In a New York Times Book Review article last month, Jennifer Schuessler quoted Bob Brown, an early proponent of electronic reading devices.  In his prescient manifesto, "The Readies," Brown declared: “The written word hasn’t kept up with the age....  Writing has been bottled up in books since the start."  Brown called for no less than ...