Behind these news networks was the entrepreneurial spirit of Benjamin Collins, a figure of national importance, who set up Salisbury's first bank, established newspapers in London and the provinces, wrote children's books with John Newbery, and whose publishing interests brought him into contact with the literary and commercial life of London. This fascinating study of the information networks of eighteenth-century provincial life will be interest to literary students and biographers as well as historians.

What happens when an actor owns shares in the stage on which he performs and the newspapers that review his performances? Celebrity that lasts over 240 years. From 1741, David Garrick dominated the London theatre world as the progenitor of a new 'natural' style of acting. From 1747 to 1776, he was a part-owner and manager of Drury Lane, controlling most aspects of the theatre's life. In a spectacular foreshadowing of today's media convergences, he also owned shares in papers including the St James's Chronicle and the Public Advertiser, which advertised and reviewed Drury Lane's theatrical productions. This book explores the nearly inconceivable level of cultural power generated by Garrick's entrepreneurial manufacture and mediation of his own celebrity. Using new technologies and extensive archival research, this book uncovers fresh material concerning Garrick's ownership and manipulation of the media, offering timely reflections for theatre history and media studies.

The celebrated text on the history of the book, completely revised, updated and expanded The revised and updated edition of The Companion to the History of the Book offers a global survey of the book’s history, through print and electronic text. Already well established as a standard survey of the historiography of the book, this new, expanded edition draws on a decade of advanced scholarship to present current research on paper, printing, binding, scientific publishing, the history of maps, music and print, the profession of authorship and lexicography. The text explores the many approaches to the book from the early clay tablets of Sumer, Assyria and Babylonia to today’s burgeoning electronic devices. The expert contributions delve into such fascinating topics as archives and paperwork, and present new chapters on Arabic script, the Slavic, Canadian, African and Australasian book, new textual technologies, and much more. Containing a wealth of illustrative examples and case studies to dramatize the exciting history of the book, the text is designed for academics, students and anyone interested in the subject.

A major history of the evolution of political journalism in the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period.

The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides a comprehensive exploration of how different media have evolved within social, regional and national contexts. The 50 chapters in this volume, written by an outstanding team of internationally respected scholars, bring together current debates and issues within media history in this era of rapid change, and also provide students and researchers with an essential collection of comparable media histories. The Routledge Companion to British Media History provides an essential guide to key ideas, issues, concepts and debates in the field. Chapter 40 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315756202.ch40

From a critically acclaimed author comes an engagingly written and groundbreaking new work that highlights the long-underestimated British role in delivering the Enlightenment to the modern world. Porter reveals how the monumental transformation of thinking in Great Britain influenced wider developments elsewhere. of color illustrations.

A ground-breaking collection by thirteen distinguished international scholars; this volume presents fresh perspectives on the exchange of culture and ideas between isolated communities through books and correspondence, and offers pioneering comparisons between the northern Atlantic and that of Spanish and Portuguese territories further south.