The essays in this volume draw upon recent debates in the fields of textual scholarship and book history to argue for a more flexible understanding of what constitutes a literary work. Each contributor, white working from different perspectives, draws attention to the impossibility of establishing any clearly delineated space within which such works can be said to exist. AII of the essays engage with cases that challenge our assumptions about how literary works should be defined, be it through re-edition in varying forais, in varying contexts, with varying paratextual features; through character migration between texts, and even between media; or through the presence of multiple authorised versions. The title of the volume. 'Tracing the Contours of Literary Works', acknowledges the continuing relevance of distinctions between literary and non-literary works while simultaneously drawing attention to the care that critics must exercise in defining the objects of his or her study. It suggests that the outlines we trace around the space 'belonging' to any given literary work must always be provisional. fluid, perhaps multiple, since no work can be reduced to a single, authoritative textual state.
