Marketing English Books, 1476-1550

Abstract

This book sets out to show how new markets were cultivated by printers in the period 1476–1550. It argues that while print and manuscript reading continued alongside each other, developments in the marketing of printed texts began to change what readers read, the ways they read and the place of reading in their lives on a larger scale and at a faster pace than had occurred before. Rather than attempting to offer a superficial survey of how the marketing of every kind of book developed, it focuses on three broad (but not wholly discreet) categories: religious reading, secular reading, and practical reading. Within those categories, the chapters focus in detail on the development of types of book that either emerged for the first time during this period (evangelical books, news pamphlets) or underwent considerable changes in presentation (devotional texts, romances, travel guides, household works). The chapters examine the presentation of early printed editions, paying particular attention to paratexts, with the aim of illuminating the range of techniques that printers used to convince potential buyers to part with their money. The printers of these works were predominantly based in London, but this book places their efforts within a wider European context. It demonstrates that, just as English manuscripts were moulded by foreign influences, English printers responded to their European counterparts’ experiments in the marketing of books.