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This volume contains 23 essays which aim to shed new light on the evolution of English culture between the 15th and 18th centuries. Both the English cultural manifestation and its continental sources are discussed, and so, too, is the way in which these phenomena interacted.
This volume of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain presents an overview of the century-and-a-half between the death of Chaucer in 1400 and the incorporation of the Stationers' Company in 1557. The profound changes during that time in social, political and religious conditions are reflected in the dissemination and reception of the written word. The manuscript culture of Chaucer's day was replaced by an ambience in which printed books would become the norm. The emphasis in this collection of essays is on the demand and use of books. Patterns of ownership are identified as well as patterns of where, why and how books were written, printed, bound, acquired, read and passed from hand to hand. The book trade receives special attention, with emphasis on the large part played by imports and on links with printers in other countries, which were decisive for the development of printing and publishing in Britain.
A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK Edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose “As a stimulating overview of the multidimensional present state of the field, the Companion has no peer.” Choice “If you want to understand how cultures come into being, endure, and change, then you need to come to terms with the rich and often surprising history Of the book ... Eliot and Rose have done a fine job. Their volume can be heartily recommended. “ Adrian Johns, Technology and Culture From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. A te...
At the end of the fourteenth and into the first half of the fifteenth century Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate translated and revised stories with long pedigrees in Latin, Italian, and French. Royals and gentry alike commissioned lavish manuscript copies of these works, copies whose images were integral to the rising prestige of English as a literary language. Yet despite the significance of these images, manuscript illuminators are seldom discussed in the major narratives of the development of English literary culture. The newly enlarged scale of English manuscript production generated a problem: namely, a need for new images. Not only did these images need to accompany narrat...
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A guide to the literature written in English from the death of Chaucer to the early sixteenth century from one of the period's pre-eminent literary scholars. Includes a valuable chronology, an informative introductory survey, and detailed sections on prose, poetry, Scottish writing, and drama.
This book analyses the relation between politics and the production of culture in Lancastrian England, focussing on the intellectual activity of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, reconstructing his library and analysing his commissions of translations, biographies and political poems.
This major, revisionist reference work explains for the first time how the Stationers' Company acquired both a charter and a nationwide monopoly of printing. In the most detailed and comprehensive investigation of the London book trade in any period, Peter Blayney systematically documents the story from 1501, when printing first established permanent roots inside the City boundaries, until the Stationers' Company was incorporated by royal charter in 1557. Having exhaustively re-examined original sources and scoured numerous archives unexplored by others in the field, Blayney radically revises accepted beliefs about such matters as the scale of native production versus importation, privileges and patents, and the regulation of printing by the Church, Crown and City. His persistent focus on individuals - most notably the families, rivals and successors of Richard Pynson, John Rastell and Robert Redman - keeps this study firmly grounded in the vivid lives and careers of early Tudor Londoners.
Explores how the earliest printers moulded demand and created new markets and argues that marketing changed what was read and the place of reading in sixteenth-century readers' lives, shaping their expectations, tastes, and their practices and beliefs.