The History of the Book includes everything concerning a book except for textual and thematic analyses for their own sake.

Locate your book in its time, culture, and geography. History of the Book scholars want to know how a book came to be, in what kind of a society, for what purpose or reason. Some books are interesting because of their author, or the mentality or philosophy that are revealed in the text, or the message they contain, or their purpose, or their printer-publisher, or the editing or censure imposed upon it by the monarchy or the church, or the piracy it suffered… You must look at the society, and the genre, or the tradition into which it is born (macro view), and inside the book to see what message is being sent, and how it is being sent (satire, pretense of authentic travel tale, etc.) (micro view). You are not expected to take apart the entire work, but to be familiar enough with the work to give examples from it.

Some questions to ponder
Who wrote it? In what circumstances?
How was this book created?
What inspired it?
In what circumstances (political, economic, religious, and cultural) was this book born?
How was published (and/or perhaps cropped, modified, etc. to suit the publisher’s needs or the readers’ expectations)?
Who helped it happen and who hindered it?
How was it received by the state, the church, the scholars, and the readership of its time?
Was it pirated? Forbidden? Translated? Partially destroyed? Lost? Re-discovered?
How was it distributed?
Was it influential in its own time? Why?
How did it survive?
Did it start a genre or help define one?
What ideals, universals, or concepts does it contain that make it relevant over a long period of time?