Pre-web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature

This Element examines pre-web literary hypertext as a watershed moment in the history of digital publishing.

Astrid Ensslin (Author)

9781108828888, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 March 2022

75 pages
17.8 x 12.7 x 0.8 cm, 0.146 kg

This Element examines a watershed moment in the recent history of digital publishing through a case study of the pre-web, serious hypertext periodical, the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext (1994-1995). Early hypertext writing relied on standalone, mainframe computers and specialized authoring software. With the Web launching as a mass distribution platform, EQRH faced a fast-evolving technological landscape, paired with an emergent gift and open access economy. Its non-linear writing experiments afford key insights into historical, medium-specific authoring practices. Access constraints have left EQRH under-researched and threatened by obsolescence. To address this challenge, this study offers platform-specific analyses of all the EQRH's cross-media materials, including works that have hitherto escaped scholarly attention. It deploys a form of conceptually oral ethno-historiography: the lore of electronic literature. The Element deepens our understanding of the North American publishing industry's history and contributes to the overdue preservation of early digital writing.

1. Introduction
2. Between Paradigms: EQRH as Digi-Modernist 'Little Magazine'
3. EQRH Works
4. Conclusion
Appendix: Technical details of individual EQRH works.

Subject Areas: Technology: general issues [TB], Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP], Literature & literary studies [D]