Historical Networks in the Book Trade

Catherine Feely, John Hinks, Catherine Feely, John Hinks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317266068
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: Literature

The book trade historically tended to operate in a spirit of co-operation as well as competition. Networks between printers, publishers, booksellers and related trades existed at local, regional, national and international levels and were a vital part of the business of books for several centuries. This collection of essays examines many aspects of the history of book-trade networks, in response to the recent 'spatial turn' in history and other disciplines. Contributors come from various backgrounds including history, sociology, business studies and English literature.

The essays in Part One introduce the relevance to book-trade history of network theory and techniques, while Part Two is a series of case studies ranging chronologically from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Topics include the movement of early medieval manuscript books, the publication of Shakespeare, the distribution of seventeenth-century political pamphlets in Utrecht and Exeter, book-trade networks before 1750 in the English East Midlands, the itinerant book trade in northern France in the late eighteenth century, how an Australian newspaper helped to create the Scottish public sphere, the networks of the Belgian publisher Murquardt, and transatlantic radical book-trade networks in the early twentieth century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction: Beyond metaphor: A personal view of historical networks in the book trade
• 2 Book trade networks and community contexts
• 3 Revealing and mapping networks: Potential opportunities and pitfalls for book trade history
• 4 History, histories and book trade networks: An exploratory Agent-Based Model
• 5 The book as movable property in England in the Early Middle Ages
• 6 Minding their F’s and Q’s: Shakespeare and the Fleet Street Syndicate 1630–32
• 7 The dissemination of political pamphlets in local towns: A comparison between late seventeenth-century Utrecht and Exeter
• 8 Early book trade networks in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire
• 9 A hotbed of hawkers: Muneville-le-Bingard and the itinerant book trade in Northern France during the Ancien Régime
• 10 The role of the Sydney Gazette in the creation of Australia in the Scottish public sphere
• 11 Copyright law, transnational book trade, and the counter-discourse of the global in the Belgian market of cheap reprints
• 12 Karl Marx’s Capital and transatlantic radical book-trade networks in the early twentieth century
• Contributors
• Index