Archaeology and literary criticism share a number of processes of interpretation, analysis and evaluation and have much to offer each other in interdisciplinary studies. John Hines argues that the two should be brought closer together to offer a broader and deeper form of cultural history'. His study demonstrates how such an approach can work over a broad chronological range examining a small group of major literary works from the Anglo-Saxon period, High Middle Ages, Renaissance and Restoration, the 1850s and American modernism of the 1930s. Key topics considered are the functions and meanings of references and objects, the physical surroundings of literary performances, the emergence of books as commodities and authorship as a profession, and the role of literature in responses to accelerating material change in the modern world.'