Chapter 12 - Early Modern Print Technologies

Summary

In the first decades of the printed book in Britain, the book trade was dominated by bookmakers from continental Europe. However, as the trade expanded and was consolidated by the incorporation of the Stationers’ Company in 1557, it has been treated as if it became more insular. Landmark histories of the book in Britain in the sixteenth century have, until recent years, tended to overestimate the extent to which books that were read in Britain were printed in Britain. As part of a revisionist trend in this field, this chapter explores the intertwined relationship between continental printers and booksellers in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. How did English authors view the possibilities, opportunities, and dangers of printing in continental Europe? How did religious, political, and commercial motives intertwine to encourage the printing of Latin works produced in England on the continent? And how were those continental printings of Latin works read and consumed back in England? Overall, the chapter offers a significant contribution to our ongoing reassessment of the interfused relationship between the history of the British and continental European book.