ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some aspects of the materiality of books. ‘Materiality’ here is understood in a broad sense that includes not only properties that ‘presence’ – substance, weight, texture, configuration, etc. – but also technical properties that condition perception or apprehension. In part, the object is to suggest how, historically, copyright law has come to suppress the materialities of books. It is also suggested, by way of a reference to Kant’s essay on the unauthorised reprinting of books, that in the process of abstracting from materiality to the transcendent form of the intangible work, copyright law overlooks the sense in which books came to function as perspectival devices.
