Books by Martyn Lyons

As a vehicle for outstanding creativity, the typewriter has been taken for granted and was, until now, a blind spot in the history of writing practices.

Featuring original and intriguing insights as well as references to material hitherto inaccessible to English readers, this study presents a form of 'history from below' with emphasis on the individual reader and writer, and his or her experiences and perceptions.

For more than 2,500 years, the book, in a wide range of forms, has been used to document, to educate and to entertain. This book explores the rich history of the book, one of the most efficient, influential and enduring technologies ever invented.

On 9 thermidor Year 2, Robespierre fell; on 18 brumaire Year 8, a coup d'etat brought Bonaparte to power. This book demonstrates that the interval between these two momentous events was also of crucial importance.

Martyn Lyons re-assesses European history between the fall of Napoleon and the Crimean War. Instead of seeing the period in traditional terms of Restoration and Reaction, this fresh account emphasizes the problems of remembering and forgetting the recent revolutionary and Napoleonic past, and of either incorporating or rejecting its legacy.

Offering a fresh history centred on the reactions and experiences of ordinary readers and writers, Lyons deals with key turning points that occurred throughout the centuries, such as the invention of the codex, the transition from scribal to print culture, the reading revolution and the industrialisation of the book.