The Book as Cosmopolitan Object: Women’s Publishing, Collecting and Anglo-German Exchange

Abstract

This chapter considers books as objects of exchange in eighteenth-century Europe and asks how these texts, moving between countries in spite of wars and political tensions, shed light on questions of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism and the rise of nationalism. These questions are particularly interesting with reference to Germany, not yet a country in the eighteenth century but a region with a confusing array of principalities and political alliances. Paradoxically, the absorption of books from another culture, in this instance the British, aided in German national self-definition and at the same time furthered international connection. Studying books as objects of exchange not only furthers our understanding of European literary history, but also highlights the political role of women as producers, consumers and cultural promoters.