Spreading the Word
The Distribution Networks of Print 1550-1850
Description:... "How did printed material in Britain get from producer to reader? What were the mechanics of supply by which individuals from very varied social backgrounds came into contact with the print culture? These are hard questions lying at the heart of what is sometimes called the new bibliography. Distribution is a complex lines of book trade history because it leads out of the self-contained and familiar area of the printing office and bookshop, into the often baffling regions of redistribution and consumption, where the evidence is often fragmentary and difficult to work with. London, with its ever-increasing output in this period of books, pamphlets, newspapers, ballads and ephemera, was always the dominant influence on the market. In this volume, however, the contributors are almost all concerned with aspects of the local trade in different parts of the British Isles and, in one essay, the trade between London and America via Scotland. They provide a series of detailed investigations into the distribution networks which supplemented and meshed in with those based on the capital, and in doing so they give a fresh view of the developing relationship between print and society over three centuries."--
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