Early Modern Publishers
Identities and Strategies in the Book Trade
Published on 10. June 2025
Book
Leather / fine binding
612 pages
978-90-04-72715-1 (ISBN)
Description
Publishers play an indisputably important part in book history, but cover such wide areas of activity that they are rarely given a formal definition. This volume seeks to place the publisher at the heart of the early modern book trade. It examines their identities and careers, the business strategies they adopted for survival, their involvement in the professional, religious, political, and economic conditions in which they found themselves, and the constraints under which they had to operate.
By presenting more than twenty case studies on individual and groups of publishers active in Sweden, Prussia, Switzerland, France, Italy, England, Ireland, Germany and the Low Countries, this volume makes a major contribution to the study of an elusive but essential figure in the history of the early modern book.
By presenting more than twenty case studies on individual and groups of publishers active in Sweden, Prussia, Switzerland, France, Italy, England, Ireland, Germany and the Low Countries, this volume makes a major contribution to the study of an elusive but essential figure in the history of the early modern book.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 41 mm
Weight
1193 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-72715-1 (9789004727151)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Barnaby Cullen, PhD (2024, University of St Andrews) is a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant with the COMLAWEU project at the University of St Andrews. He specialises in the history of print and politics of early modern Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Ian Maclean FBA holds Emeritus and Honorary Professorships at Oxford and St Andrews. His most recent publications are Episodes in the Life of the Early Modern Learned Book (Brill, 2020) and [ed. with Dmitri Levitin] Classical Reception in Early Modern Europe: Comparative Perspectives (Brill, 2021).
Arthur der Weduwen is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director and Project Manager of the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC). He specialises in the history of communication, printing and the book trade, early modern politics, and the history of the Netherlands. He is the author or editor of a dozen books in these fields.
Ian Maclean FBA holds Emeritus and Honorary Professorships at Oxford and St Andrews. His most recent publications are Episodes in the Life of the Early Modern Learned Book (Brill, 2020) and [ed. with Dmitri Levitin] Classical Reception in Early Modern Europe: Comparative Perspectives (Brill, 2021).
Arthur der Weduwen is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director and Project Manager of the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC). He specialises in the history of communication, printing and the book trade, early modern politics, and the history of the Netherlands. He is the author or editor of a dozen books in these fields.
Content
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction: Early Modern Publishers
?Ian Maclean
Part 1: Authors, Translators, Patrons and Institutions as Publishers
2 King, Bishop, Professor and Postmaster: The Early Modern Swedish Publisher
?Arthur der Weduwen and Barnaby Cullen
3 Olaus Magnus as Publisher: An Exiled Swedish Archbishop in Rome
?Vigdis Andrea Baugsto Evang
4 Strategies of Paratexts: Polish-Speaking Koenigsberg Publishers (c.1540-1575) Communicating with Their Readers
?Wojciech Kordyzon
5 An Institutional Collective Publisher? Geneva's Company of Pastors Exploiting Printing (c.1620-c.1685)
?Hadrien Dami
6 Publishing Books by Subscription: The Contribution to Its Development by Authors, the Universities and Booksellers in Seventeenth-Century England
?John A. Sibbald
Part 2: Publishers and Commercial Strategies
7 Publishing an Early Modern Best Seller: Jean du Pre? and the French Vitae patrum (1486-1487)
?Matteo Colombo
8 Necessary and Useful Things: Hernando Colon, the Bindoni Family and the Production of Popular Books in Sixteenth-Century Venice
?Natale Vacalebre
Part 3: Confessional Identities, Economic Considerations
9 'Blawius paratissimus est excudere Niciana omnia'
?Gian Vittorio Rossi's Pinacotheca and the Collaborative Navigation of the Interconfessional Early Modern Book Trade
?Jennifer K. Nelson
10 'Popish Books and Popish Knacks': The Evolving Publishing Career of James Thompson, 1650-1678
?Chelsea Reutcke
11 For Economic Profit or the Jansenist Cause?
?How Eugene-Henri Fricx and Arnauld de Brigode Managed Their Publishing Roles during the Jansenist Controversy (1680-1703)
?Dieter Cammaerts
12 The Protestant Merchants Who Kept Catholic Publishing Alive: Publishing and Distribution Strategy at the Officina Plantiniana
?Elise Watson
13 'I Am Not Afraid-I Have a Printing Press at My Disposal': Aspects of Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
?Heide Warncke
Part 4: Political Identities, Economic Considerations
14 Thomas Basset, Publisher of Locke and Hobbes: A Life and Death on Fleet Street
?Geoff Kemp
15 Champions of 'The Great English Third Estate'? The Evolving Output of English Trade Publishers, 1680-1700
?Basil Bowdler
16 Politics behind Publishing: The Publication of French Revolutionary Books for the Dublin Market, 1789-1794
?Maria Zukovs
Part 5: Rivalries and Controversy
17 A Bitter Rivalry: Parrino, Bulifon and the Race to Publish a History of Naples
?Laura Incollingo
18 Johann Hermann Widerhold (1635-1683), International Publishing Rivalries and the Limits of the Genevan Book Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century
?Zachary Brookman
19 Negotiating Practice and Identity through Nachdruck: Publishers and Unauthorised Print in the German Print World (1765-1835)
?Isabelle Riepe
Part 6: Profiles of the English Publisher, 1580-1750
20 The Poor versus the Patents: Contextualising John Danter's Reputation through the Lens of the Patent-Less Poor
?Michelle Michel
21 Behold, a White Horse in St Paul's Churchyard: Arthur Johnson and the Distribution of Literature in Early Seventeenth-Century London
?Andreas P. Bassett
22 Women Stationers at the Temple
?Uncovering the Presence of Women in the Book Trade at the Honourable Societies of the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple
?Barnaby Bryan and Renae Satterley
23 The English Provincial Publisher, 1695-1750: Beyond the Local Newspaper
?James McCall
Afterword: O, Where Are the Early Modern Publishers for Today?
?Jeff Jarvis
Index
Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction: Early Modern Publishers
?Ian Maclean
Part 1: Authors, Translators, Patrons and Institutions as Publishers
2 King, Bishop, Professor and Postmaster: The Early Modern Swedish Publisher
?Arthur der Weduwen and Barnaby Cullen
3 Olaus Magnus as Publisher: An Exiled Swedish Archbishop in Rome
?Vigdis Andrea Baugsto Evang
4 Strategies of Paratexts: Polish-Speaking Koenigsberg Publishers (c.1540-1575) Communicating with Their Readers
?Wojciech Kordyzon
5 An Institutional Collective Publisher? Geneva's Company of Pastors Exploiting Printing (c.1620-c.1685)
?Hadrien Dami
6 Publishing Books by Subscription: The Contribution to Its Development by Authors, the Universities and Booksellers in Seventeenth-Century England
?John A. Sibbald
Part 2: Publishers and Commercial Strategies
7 Publishing an Early Modern Best Seller: Jean du Pre? and the French Vitae patrum (1486-1487)
?Matteo Colombo
8 Necessary and Useful Things: Hernando Colon, the Bindoni Family and the Production of Popular Books in Sixteenth-Century Venice
?Natale Vacalebre
Part 3: Confessional Identities, Economic Considerations
9 'Blawius paratissimus est excudere Niciana omnia'
?Gian Vittorio Rossi's Pinacotheca and the Collaborative Navigation of the Interconfessional Early Modern Book Trade
?Jennifer K. Nelson
10 'Popish Books and Popish Knacks': The Evolving Publishing Career of James Thompson, 1650-1678
?Chelsea Reutcke
11 For Economic Profit or the Jansenist Cause?
?How Eugene-Henri Fricx and Arnauld de Brigode Managed Their Publishing Roles during the Jansenist Controversy (1680-1703)
?Dieter Cammaerts
12 The Protestant Merchants Who Kept Catholic Publishing Alive: Publishing and Distribution Strategy at the Officina Plantiniana
?Elise Watson
13 'I Am Not Afraid-I Have a Printing Press at My Disposal': Aspects of Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
?Heide Warncke
Part 4: Political Identities, Economic Considerations
14 Thomas Basset, Publisher of Locke and Hobbes: A Life and Death on Fleet Street
?Geoff Kemp
15 Champions of 'The Great English Third Estate'? The Evolving Output of English Trade Publishers, 1680-1700
?Basil Bowdler
16 Politics behind Publishing: The Publication of French Revolutionary Books for the Dublin Market, 1789-1794
?Maria Zukovs
Part 5: Rivalries and Controversy
17 A Bitter Rivalry: Parrino, Bulifon and the Race to Publish a History of Naples
?Laura Incollingo
18 Johann Hermann Widerhold (1635-1683), International Publishing Rivalries and the Limits of the Genevan Book Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century
?Zachary Brookman
19 Negotiating Practice and Identity through Nachdruck: Publishers and Unauthorised Print in the German Print World (1765-1835)
?Isabelle Riepe
Part 6: Profiles of the English Publisher, 1580-1750
20 The Poor versus the Patents: Contextualising John Danter's Reputation through the Lens of the Patent-Less Poor
?Michelle Michel
21 Behold, a White Horse in St Paul's Churchyard: Arthur Johnson and the Distribution of Literature in Early Seventeenth-Century London
?Andreas P. Bassett
22 Women Stationers at the Temple
?Uncovering the Presence of Women in the Book Trade at the Honourable Societies of the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple
?Barnaby Bryan and Renae Satterley
23 The English Provincial Publisher, 1695-1750: Beyond the Local Newspaper
?James McCall
Afterword: O, Where Are the Early Modern Publishers for Today?
?Jeff Jarvis
Index