The evolution of the primary institution of literary mediation, the publishing house, has been a result of significant historical, sociological and technological developments since the end of World War II. Just as the early sixties marked the beginning of a new era in literary publishing (most notably through the expansion of paperback publishing) the eighties and nineties may also represent another benchmark in the evolution of the publishing industry in western industrialized nations. Our perceptions of the literary text, now reproduced in increasingly diverse formats and adapted to new media, are bound to the changing role of the book medium itself, which is being integrated into a highly complex communications marketplace.