This rich and varied collection of essays by scholars and interviews with artists approaches the fraught topic of book destruction from a new angle, setting out an alternative history of the cutting, burning, pulping, defacing and tearing of books from the medieval period to our own age.

Anthony Bale, Birkbeck, University of London, UK Heike Bauer, Birkbeck, University of London, UK Ross Birrell, Glasgow School of Arts, Scotland Stephen Colclough, Bangor University, Wales Nicola Dale, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Kate Flint, University of Southern California, USA Tom Philips, artist, UK Adam Smyth, Balliol College, Oxford, UK Heather Tilley, independent scholar, UK