„Coffee-table books” a XIX-wieczna kultura książki salonowej
Coffee-Table Books and the 19th-Century Culture of the Drawing-Room Book

Summary/Abstract: The fashion for displaying books on tables of all kinds has a long history, as has the book itself as a decorative object. In the 19th century, drawing-room books - the historical equivalent of today’s coffee-table books, lavishly illustrated, large-format volumes designed more for viewing and browsing than for reading - served both a decorative and a social function, delighting guests and providing entertainment. They included illustrated books, music albums, photographic albums, almanacs, and fashion magazines, as well as non-illustrated works such as tastefully bound editions of the Bible, historical studies, classic novels, and poetry. In this article, I argue that in the 19th century, unlike in the case of today’s coffee-table books, neither illustration - such as photographic images - nor aesthetic value alone qualified a publication as a book for the salon, that is, a book displayed outside the spaces traditionally assigned to it, such as a bookcase, desk, or library. The article introduces a new research topic: the popular 19th-century book as a table and drawing-room ornament, and highlights the importance of this type of publication in broader research on the culture of the period.

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