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This collection of essays is designed to honour the work of Lotte Hellinga on her retirement from the British Library, where she was for many years Head of the Incunable Section. Scholars from eight countries range widely over the field of 15th-century printed books, writing on such topics as the shape of early type; authorship, ownership and the building up of collections of incunabula; the binding and decoration of books from the presses of England, the Low Countries and Italy; the earliest trade in printed books; and the vicissitudes of the Gutenberg Bible in the sales rooms. The book is illustrated and contains an appreciation of Dr Hellinga's career and a list of her publications.
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The contributions to this volume address important issues about books and their users in the 15th century. A unifying theme is the complex relationships between producers - be they authors, printers or decorators - the economic conditions of book distribution, and the requirements of readers or other users of books. Two contributions focus on technical aspects of the production of books, essential for our understanding of how texts met their readers. Such engaged and informed openness towards other disciplines is necessary for students of books to understand why the European invention of printing was successful - of why books became the first successful mechanically mass-produced marketable product.
Almost half a million books printed in the fifteenth century survive in collections worldwide. In Incunabula in Transit Lotte Hellinga explores how and where they were first disseminated. Propelled by the novel need to market hundreds of books, early printers formed networks with colleagues, engaged agents and traded Latin books over long distances. They adapted presentation to suit the taste of distinct readerships, local and remote. Publishing in vernacular languages required typographical innovations, as the chapter on William Caxton’s Flanders enterprise demonstrates. Eighteenth-century collectors dislodged books from institutions where they had rested since the sales drives of early printers. Erudite and entertaining, Hellinga’s evidence-based approach, linked to historical context, deepens understanding of the trade in early printed books.