This course will explore the differences in telling a tale orally, in writing, in print, and on the computer screen. We will begin with the Bible, with the moment that the Jews made the transition from being a people of a geographical location and oral culture to being a people in exile and a people of the book. We will look both at the special nature of a holy book and the physical aspects and implications of its material shape as scroll. Then we will leap forward to the Bible in print and how that shift in medium put into question its authority, and then on to the holy text on the internet. Next we will zero in on medieval manuscript culture, specifically Christine de Pisan's view of how written texts shaped social interactions and even the self. Her revision of Boccaccio's On Famous Women, the Book of the City of Ladies, will be our main text here, but we will also look at the controversy she incited on the "Question of Women" and her own role in the production of texts, as well as how manuscripts were made and paid for. Then on to the era of print and specifically the more wide-spread circulation of texts in journals. Though this unit will begin in the 18th century, we will focus on The Picture of Dorian Gray as a book that was dramatically revised in its movement from journal publication to book and consider the influence of the reading public and the economics of publication. The class will conclude with interactive fiction on the web, looking at how this medium changes the roles of reader and author as it changes the nature of the text itself, and once again the complex contributions of economics to these changes. The course will include as much contact with the material texts as the teacher can contrive, including field trips. It will also include considerable use of the Web as a topic of analysis, a means of access to manuscripts and early print texts, and as a medium for producing the students' own work.