Reading before Reading: Sensual Elements as Social Indications

Bonnie Griffin, a graduate student in Hanna Roman’s spring 2016 “Rethinking the Enlightenment French Novel” class, examines the physical composition/materiality of eighteenth-century books in the Morris Wachs Collection. Drawn to the exquisite marbled papers in the Wachs books, Bonnie talks about how the books’ forms tell us much about the book as an intellectual and social tool and the role of literature in society.