Download or read book The Economy of Character written by Deidre Lynch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-05-13 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the start of the 18th century, literary "characters" referred as much to letters and typefaces as it did to persons in books. However, this text shows how, by the 19th century, readers used transactions with characters to accommodate themselves to newly-commercialized social relations.