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  • 34 - Publishing contemporary English literature, 1695–1774

  • from II - LITERATURE AND THE CULTURE OF LETTERS
  • Edited by Michael F. Suarez, SJ, University of Virginia, Michael L. Turner, Bodleian Library, Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 September 2010
    Print publication:
    29 October 2009, pp 649-666

  • Summary

    The three score and ten years from the lapse of the Printing Acts to the Lords' decision in Donaldson v. Becket, 1695-1774, witnessed many developments that materially affected the production, distribution and reception of English literature in Britain. New productions of old plays, if they did reasonably well, often occasioned new editions. In the comic repertoire, for example, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Cibber, Farquhar and Steele were repeatedly staged and frequently reprinted. Sales of the dead, and successful living, authors subsidized the publication of new works: plays as well as poems and, later, prose fiction. During the Restoration and eighteenth century, play texts were most commonly reprints of whatever edition was close to hand. Few playwrights showed much concern for the texts of their published plays, most attended neither to the first edition, nor to the correction or revision of subsequent editions, Congreve being the most obvious and important exception.