Volume 1: 1. 1357–1500: historical and lexical introduction; 2. 1501–9: in the beginning …; 3. 1510–20: royal privilege and clerical scrutiny; 4. 1521–8: the Church clamps down; 5. 1529–34: the old order changeth; 6. 1535–41: a septennium of bibles; 7. 1535–41: the Company grows; 8. 1542–6: the end of Henry's reign. Volume 2: 9. 1547–53: the reign of Edward VI; 10. 1553–7: from catastrophe to charter; 11. 1554–7: the road to incorporation; 12. 1501–57: conclusion; Appendices: A. The founding of the Company, 12 July 1403; B. Edition-sheets versus 'masterformes'; C. Importation statistics; D. Privileges, patents, and placards; E. A surfeit of Bourmans; F. John Day of Barholm; G. The sites of six printing houses; H. Maps: Fleet Street, St Paul's Churchyard, Paternoster Row; I. Stationers' Hall and its neighbours; J. The charter of 1557; K. STC books (and others) included in the graphs; Manuscripts cited; Bibliography; Index of STC numbers; General index.
An exhaustively researched, radically revisionist account of how the Stationers' Company came to be incorporated and given a monopoly of printing.
Peter W. M. Blayney is an independent scholar widely considered to be the leading expert on the book trade in Tudor and early Stuart London. His publications include The Texts of King Lear and their Origins (1982), which reconstructed the printing of the First Quarto in unprecedented detail, and his groundbreaking monograph, The Bookshops in Paul's Cross Churchyard (1990), which pioneered the field of book-trade topography. His controversial article on 'The Publication of Playbooks', which demonstrated that Victorian literary scholars were mistaken in believing Tudor and Stuart play-quartos to have been among the best-selling books of their day, won the Sohmer-Hall Prize for 1997. He has been awarded fellowships by Trinity College, Cambridge, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bibliographical Society.
'Blayney's book is quite an extraordinary feat of scholarship. Any
future writing about this period by book historians,
bibliographers, students of censorship and of press control, and
literary or textual scholars will have to use his book as a
starting point.' John Barnard, University of Leeds
'Written by an author who over the course of a lifetime has become
the world's leading authority on printing and the book trade in
early modern (and especially early Tudor) England, this book
represents a triumph and the gold standard. No one can match Peter
Blayney's expertise. His book is a monumental work in every sense.'
John Guy, University of Cambridge
'Monumental … an unprecedentedly detailed view of printing in
England during the previously understudied period between the
innovations of Caxton and the latter half of the sixteenth
century.' The Times Literary Supplement
'A short review will inevitably struggle to convey the scope of the
project and the many discoveries made, but it is an enterprise
worthy of the undertaking for the simple fact that these volumes
should occupy a place on the shelves of anyone concerned with, or
interested in, early printing.' Carol M. Meale, The Book
Collector
'… [this] two-volume study is illuminating, engrossing [and]
overwhelming … never anything less than invaluable … [lays] out
with exquisite precision the formative years of the London book
trade … this history should … serve as an essential reference work
to be consulted for years to come. In the masterful narrative lives
of Stationers great and small, in the meticulous archival and
quantitative details, even in the smallest footnotes, scholars will
find bountiful information and insights to enrich their own
labours.' David I. Gants, The Library
'… from now on, anyone making statements about printing,
publishing, or the Stationers before the Charter had better look at
Blayney, and we await, with great anticipation, the next two
volumes which will take the subject up into the seventeenth
century.' William Proctor Williams, Notes and Queries
'[This book] is an expression of a quantity of archival labour and
expertise that may never be surpassed: it is a great piling up of
new, neglected or (Blayney's favourite category) disastrously
misunderstood pieces of archival evidence.' Adam Smyth, London
Review of Books
'Blayney has sought to examine all the available evidence
concerning the book trade, not least the books themselves, and to
use this material to correct and revise the historical record of
book production in the period and so also the history of the period
itself. As in all his work, he has set himself to achieve a
formidably high standard of industry, understanding, knowledge,
analysis, and exposition; he has succeeded triumphantly in
achieving and exceeding it.' H. R. Woudhuysen, Common Knowledge
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