Books and Religious Devotion: The Redemptive Reading of an Irishman in Nineteenth-Century New England

Examines the book collection of Thomas Connary, a nineteenth-century Irish Catholic New England farmer, to reconstruct how Connary read and annotated his books. 

Contents: 

• "I Am Here"
• Studying Used Books: The Plan of the Argument
• Reading
• Paratext
• Obsession
• Epiphany
• Irish American Print Culture In The Nineteenth Century: A Private Library
• A Collector and Reader
• F. Lewis [Louis of Granada], The Sinner's Guide
• Thomas H. Kinane, The Dove of the Tabernacle
• James Balmes, Fundamental Philosophy
• George Foxcroft Haskins, Travels in England, France, Italy, and Ireland
• Periodicals and Newspapers
• Reading for Guidance and Edification: "Book Keeping" in the Connary Household
• Epiphany: "Seeing Very Plainly"
• Laboring In My Books": Thomas Connary's Book Enhancements
• Enhancing "the Blank Paper Surface Room"
• Decorative Embellishment and Extra-Illustration
• Newspaper and Magazine Clippings
• Diary and Miscellaneous Records
• Prayers and Religious Assertions
• Planning Reading
• A Reader's Responses
• The Autonomous Reader
• Epiphany: The Lamp
• Redemptive Reading In The Connary Household
• Domestic Reading and the Presence of the Book
• The Social Annotator
• Heavenly Books
• "Putting Books to Work": A Culture of Redemptive Reading
• Book Signing
• "The Pen and the Press Blest Alliance Combined!": Thomas Connary in Print
• Epiphany: The Road To Lancaster
• The Farmer's Treasure: Thomas Connary Reading St. Francis Of Sales And Julian Of Norwich
• Reading the Classics
• The Books of "Mother Juliana" and "Our Saint Francis"
• On Being Elsewhere: Inscribing Longing and Transcendence in the Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis of Sales
• The Spiritual Epiphany
• Reading Julian
• In Dialogue with Julian
• Finding Comfort in Julian: Reflections on Incorporation and Salvation
• "The Social Joys of Heaven" and the Problem of Contention
• Epiphany: "No Priest Or Bishop In This Church But Himself Alone"
• Book Keeping, Longing, And Besetment
• In a Room of His Own: Book Enhancement and Besetment
• "We Must Never Be Too Full of Words": Preaching in Stratford
• Madness in the Books
• Vessels of Nostalgia
• Peace and Communality