The advances of book history and editorial theory remind us that it is vital to look behind the text we read. Sukanta Chaudhuri explores, at a very fundamental level, how texts are constituted and how they work. He applies insights from many lines of study not brought together so closely before: theories of language, signification and reception alongside bibliography, textual criticism, editorial theory and book history. Blending case studies with general observation and theory, he considers the implications of the physical form of the text; the relation between oral and written language, and between language and other media; the new territory opened up by electronic texts; and special categories like play-books and translations. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of material, both Western literature and Indian works from Sanskrit aesthetics to the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, Chaudhuri sets a new agenda for the study of texts.