"From Pierre de Fermat to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Graham Greene, readers have related to books through the notes they write in the margins. In this book - the first to examine the phenomenon of marginalia - H.J. Jackson surveys a range of annotated books to explore the history of marginalia, the forms they take, the psychology that underlies them, and the reactions they provoke." "Based on a study of thousands of books annotated by readers both famous and obscure over the past three centuries, this book reveals the intensity of emotion that characterizes the process of reading. For hundreds of years, readers have talked to other people in the margins of their books - not only to authors, but also to friends, lovers, and future generations."--BOOK JACKET.