Theories of the Text is the first comprehensive account of the changing practice of bibliography, textual criticism, and scholarly editing in the light of the diverse currents of contemporary critical theory. It offers both a much-needed introduction to the history of textual debate and a timely account of the current hotly contested debates over such issues as authorial intention, textual organicism, the socialization of the text, and intertextuality. Despite the positivist tradition of textual scholarship, D. C. Greetham argues, such work is a hermeneutic activity taking place within certain (usually unacknowledged) social and cultural conceptual constraints.