A Colonial Book Market

Peruvian Print Culture in the Age of Enlightenment

Agnes Gehbald

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009360845
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

This volume provides a wholly original social history of books in late colonial Peru. From the second half of the eighteenth century onward, workshops in Lima and transoceanic imports supplied the market with unprecedented quantities of print publications. By tracing the variety of printed commodities that were circulating in the urban sphere, as well as analysing the spatiality of the trade and the materiality of the books themselves, Agnes Gehbald assesses the meaning of print culture in the everyday lives of the viceroyalty. She reveals how books permeated late colonial society on a broad scale and how they figured as objects in the inventories of diverse individuals, both women and men, who, in previous centuries, had been far less likely to possess them. Deeply researched and profound, A Colonial Book Market uncovers how people in Peruvian cities gained access to reading material and participated in the global Enlightenment project.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on Language, Book Titles, and Units
• Introduction: A Social History of Books
• 1 Colonial Confines
• 2 Growing Supplies
• 3 An Expanding Market
• 4 Bestselling Genres
• 5 The Reach of Reading Material
• Conclusion: A Community of Readers across the Atlantic
• Appendix A: Bibliographic Categories
• Appendix B: Printing Workshops in Lima, c. 1760–1820
• Appendix C: Book Trade Personnel in Lima, 1770–1822
• Appendix D: Map of the Sites of Printing and Bookselling in Lima, 1760–1822
• Appendix E: Boxes with Books Imported to Callao, 1776–1818
• Bibliography
• Index