Winner of the American Comparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize for the best book in comparative literary history 1999-2002

Winner of the English Association's Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarship in medieval and Renaissance literature (2001)

Honorable Mention for the American Society for Theatre Research's Barnard Hewitt Award for outstanding scholarship in theatre history (2001)

"This book is an example of some of the exciting work being undertaken in the growing field of book history.... It is an important contribution to the understanding of the impact and legacy of the printing press.... Eminently scholarly and subtly argued.... Scholars in a variety of fields...will welcome this book as an engaging starting point for research at the intersection of historical bibliography, the history of communication, theatre history, and dramatic theory."--Sixteenth Century Journal

"The Theatre of the Book does what no other book has done so well: gather an account of the relationship between the rise of printed drama and theatrical practice. It's absorbing reading, richly detailed and illustrated, and should promote ongoing consideration of the mutual abrasion of these two long-lived (and now often-maligned) institutions."--Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"Remarkable and wide-ranging."--Times Literary Supplement

"Magnificent.... A magnum opus in more ways than one.... This is a big book and an important one, that merits applause for both the scope of its intellectual ambition and the scholarly integrity and enthusiasm of its execution."--Years Work in English Studies

"This is a terrific book.... I really like this book, and I shall turn to it many times in the future, not only for its contents, but also because it has been artfully produced with proper paper, lovely and abundant illustrations, and an organization that insistently counterpoises the page and the stage, contrasting, comparing, and finally unifying the one with the other."--Tom Berger, SHARP News