
The Author's Due
Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright
Joseph Loewenstein(Author)
University of Chicago Press
Published on 14. July 2002
Book
Hardback
344 pages
978-0-226-49040-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Author's Due offers an institutional and cultural history of books, the book trade, and the bibliographic ego. Joseph Loewenstein traces the emergence of possessive authorship from the establishment of a printing industry in England to the passage of the 1710 Statute of Anne, which provided the legal underpinnings for modern copyright. Along the way he demonstrates that the culture of books, including the idea of the author, is intimately tied to the practical trade of publishing those books. As Loewenstein shows, copyright is a form of monopoly that developed alongside a range of related protections such as commercial trusts, manufacturing patents, and censorship, and cannot be understood apart from them. The regulation of the press pitted competing interests and rival monopolistic structures against one another - guild members and nonprofessionals, printers and booksellers, authors and publishers. These struggles, in turn, crucially shaped the literary and intellectual practices of early modern authors, as well as early capitalist economic organization.
With its probing look at the origins of modern copyright, The Author's Due will prove to be a watershed for historians, literary critics, and legal scholars alike.
With its probing look at the origins of modern copyright, The Author's Due will prove to be a watershed for historians, literary critics, and legal scholars alike.
Reviews / Votes
"The Author's Due offers a complex and highly nuanced history of proprietary authorship and the printing industry in early modern England. This book will come to be recognized as a monument in its field." - Leah S. Marcus, author of The Politics of Mirth and Puzzling ShakespeareMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
624 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-49040-3 (9780226490403)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2010
1st Edition
University of Chicago Press
€84.09
Available for download
Person
Joseph Loewenstein is professor of English at Washington University. He is the author of Responsive Readings: Versions of Echo in Pastoral, Epic, and the Jonsonian Masque and the forth-coming Jonson and Possessive Authorship.