For the first time, the history of the book, and published literature of all kinds in Exeter and Devon, is traced from the dawn of literacy to the present day, in a publication linked to Exeter’s designation by UNESCO as a City of Literature, the only city in Britain to receive this accolade in 2019.

It shows that Exeter has been a literate city for two millennia, and over that period the written word has reached us in a variety of ways, from illuminated manuscripts, through printed texts to digital media. The book traces the various forms in which we have received the written word, from Celtic coiners, through Roman graffiti writers, scribes in monastic scriptoria, printers working their heavy manual presses, to the mass media and web designers. It charts the development of booksellers, publishers, libraries and archives and how they relate to the authors that create the texts and the community of readers. It traces the complex networks that have evolved to facilitate the transmission of texts, from scholars corresponding at a distance in medieval times and the Renaissance, to post boys distributing newspapers on horseback in the eighteenth century, and the World Wide Web at the end of the second millennium. It shows how there is a continuity over time; printing did not put an end to manuscripts and the internet has not killed the printed book. Above all it traces the progressive democratisation of the written word from a time when literacy was the preserve of a small educated elite, to an era when everyone can hold the knowledge of the world in the palm of their hand.