Chapter 8 focuses on the graphemes underlying the letters i and y, and in particular <i> and <y> in word-initial, word-medial and word-final positions, as well as <ie> and <ye> word-finally. Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, i and y shifted from an early distribution principle to a new, modern standard, which generally resulted in the establishment of vocalic <i> word-initially and word-medially, as well as <y> for glides word-initially and for vowels word-finally. The analysis establishes the presence of a quantitative shift in the wholesale uses of <i> and <y> between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, and provides a precise chronology for the standardisation of word-initial, word-medial and word-final graphemic changes in i and y. While it is true that their modern standardisation occurred rather gradually between the 1540s and the 1580s, the shift from ˂y˃ to ˂i˃ also happened relatively uniformly across the vocabulary, encompassing both high-frequency and low-frequency lexical items immediately from as early as the 1540s.

Chapter 10 focuses on the standardisation of vowel diacritic spelling, and especially groups of graphemes indicating vowel quality and vowel quantity. Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, <ea˃ and <oa˃, indicating vowel quality, as well as <dg> and <g>, <tch> and <ch>, and <k> and <ck>, for vowel quantity, shifted from an early distribution principle to a new, modern standard. The results show a modern development that lasted throughout most of the sixteenth century, both in the two digraphs and in the consonantal alternants. By the seventeenth century, the uses of vowel diacritic spelling appear to have crystallised despite later ongoing vocalic developments in Early Modern English. The changes in the sets of graphemes investigated occurred uniformly across two generations, both at vocabulary level, encompassing high-frequency and low-frequency words concurrently, and also across most of the spelling units analysed. As for all the other case studies, my results indicate that there may have been a pragmatic agent behind the modern developments in vowel diacritic spelling.

Chapter 7 deals with the redistributions of ˂u˃/˂v˃ and ˂i˃/˂j˃ in word-initial position. The main empirical finding is a sudden shift from an earlier graphotactic distribution to a phonographic one, which occurred between the 1620s and 1640s. From the quantitative and qualitative results collected for the positional spellings, a compelling linguistic scenario becomes apparent behind the positional redistribution. By taking an eclectic, large-scale perspective on spelling standardisation, one can overcome some of the variables that inevitably correlate, and likely underlie, any abrupt spelling changes in small, specific collections, for example the latent influence of different exemplars between different editions of an individual text. Departing from a more precise understanding of the chronology and the lexical diffusion of the positional spellings, this case study uncovers, for the first time, some of the mechanisms involved in the uses of different positional spelling conventions between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. In particular, the chapter argues for a close connection between the abrupt, one-generational changes in the uses of word-initial ˂u˃/˂v˃ and ˂i˃/˂j˃, and compositional factors that affected the Early Modern English printing industry.

Chapter 9 focuses on the analysis of etymological spelling, and especially the insertion of <b>, <c>, <d>, <l> and <p> in Early Modern English word forms, the development of alternant <aun> and <ph>, and the rationalisation of <er>/<ar>. My results indicate that etymologised spellings appeared increasingly more markedly between the early and the mid-sixteenth century, while only a percentage of the forms which developed during these decades continued until the seventeenth century. My investigation shows that the etymologising developments in epenthetic graphemes, <aun>, <ph> and <er>/<ar> spread out not gradually, from high-frequency words to lower-frequency ones, but rather at largely comparable frequencies across most of the English vocabulary, albeit somewhat erratically and haphazardly across legitimate and illegitimate etymologies. The discussion reflects upon the development of the etymological spellings, focusing especially on the potential interaction between authors and printers as agents responsible for the modern standardisation during the process of in-house proofreading. Overall, I suggest, changes occurring in the English printing industry were primarily responsible for the different etymologising trends between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of some of the most fundamental developments in the market of early English print, as well as changes in the organisational and political arrangements of the business of printing in Early Modern England. These pieces of information will be pivotal for understanding the dynamics of spelling standardisation uncovered in the case studies to be included in the book. The chapter departs from the idea that the printing press was not, on its own, an agent of change; instead, printing acted as a bridge from handwriting to mass book production, generating, sustaining and organising manuscript features. The chapter also describes the connections between the English printing industry and broader organisational changes, covering milestone events like the establishment of the Stationers’ Company in 1557, the implementation of censorship rules from the English government, the formation of the English Stock and some of the major typographic innovations introduced at the time.

Recent levels of scholarly activity suggest that Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke remain the pre-eminent Irish writers of the period 1700–1780. Swift’s works are currently being newly edited under the auspices of Cambridge University Press and a new edition of his Correspondence was completed in 2014. It is timely, therefore, to take stock of how these and other bibliographical and critical resources have altered our approach to Swift. The present chapter conducts this assessment, first by looking at the kind of normative critical approach with which the author was himself furnished when encountering Swift as a student; and subsequently by surveying the areas of biography, Irish studies, and book history in which research activity since 2010 has been intense. The chapter discusses recent critical approaches to Swift, identifying the paradigms which studies of this highly controversial writer create and challenge, asking what it means to read Swift in the twenty-first century.