Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, edited by Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins, investigates an underexplored yet important facet of early modern book production. Bringing together 19 detailed case studies, this volume considers and reconstructs the characteristics of specialist book production in the early modern period. In particular it explores the motives that led to specialisation ranging from the desire for profit on the part of risk-taking, entrepreneurial individuals or family firms to the more propagandist or missionising aims of corporate groups who subsidised production, often without regard for profit. The book also explores the economic and personal pressures and perils that accompanied specialist production, which was often a risk-laden enterprise that could end in financial and social ruin.

Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, edited by Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins, investigates an underexplored yet important facet of early modern book production. Bringing together 19 detailed case studies, this volume considers and reconstructs the characteristics of specialist book production in the early modern period. In particular it explores the motives that led to specialisation ranging from the desire for profit on the part of risk-taking, entrepreneurial individuals or family firms to the more propagandist or missionising aims of corporate groups who subsidised production, often without regard for profit. The book also explores the economic and personal pressures and perils that accompanied specialist production, which was often a risk-laden enterprise that could end in financial and social ruin.

This collection of essays, commissioned in honour of Andrew Pettegree, presents original contributions on the Reformation, communication and the book in early modern Europe. Together, the essays reflect on Pettegree’s ground-breaking influence on these fields, and offer a comprehensive survey of the state of current scholarship.

International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World presents new research on several aspects of the movement and exchange of books between countries, languages and confessions. It considers elements of the international book trade, the circulation and collection of texts, the practice of translation and the diffusion and exchange of technical and cultural knowledge. Commercial and logistical aspects of the early modern book trade are considered, as are the relationships between local markets and the internationally-minded firms which sought to meet their expectations. The barriers to the movement of books across borders – political, linguistic, confessional, cultural – are explored, as are the means by which these barriers were surmounted.

The early modern European book world was confronted with many crises and controversies. Some conflicts were of such monumental scale that they wrought significant reconfigurations of the trade. Others were more quotidian in nature – evidence of the intensely competitive and at times predatory nature of the industry. How publishing negotiated and responded to the various crises, conflicts and disputes of the age is explored by the rich and varied interdisciplinary contributions in this volume. To succeed in the business of books, printers and publishers needed to seize the advantage in the often complex environments in which they operated. What was required was determination, resilience, and inventiveness, even in the most challenging of times.

In Episodes, Ian Maclean investigates the ways in which the book trade operated through book fairs, and interacted with academic institutions, journals and intellectual life in various European settings (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and England) in the long seventeenth century.

This book presents and explores a challenging new approach in book history. It offers a coherent volume of thirteen chapters in the field of early modern book history covering a wide range of topics and it is written by renowned scholars in the field. The rationale and content of this volume will revitalize the theoretical and methodological debate in book history. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the field of early modern book history as well as in a range of other disciplines. It offers book historians an innovative methodological approach on the life cycle of books in and outside Europe. It is also highly relevant for social-economic and cultural historians because of the focus on the commercial, legal, spatial, material and social aspects of book culture. Scholars that are interested in the history of science, ideas and news will find several chapters dedicated to the production, circulation and consumption of knowledge and news media.