UID:
almafu_9958351918702883
Format:
1 online resource(400p.) :
,
illustrations.
Edition:
Electronic reproduction. : Harvard University Press. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Edition:
System requirements: Web browser.
Edition:
Access may be restricted to users at subscribing institutions.
ISBN:
9780674065321
Content:
A decade ago in the Times Literary Supplement, Roderick Conway Morris claimed that "almost everything that was going to happen in book publishing—from pocket books, instant books and pirated books, to the concept of author’s copyright, company mergers, and remainders—occurred during the early days of printing." Ian Maclean’s colorful survey of the flourishing learned book trade of the late Renaissance brings this assertion to life. The story he tells covers most of Europe, with Frankfurt and its Fair as the hub of intellectual exchanges among scholars and of commercial dealings among publishers. The three major religious confessions jostled for position there, and this rivalry affected nearly all aspects of learning. Few scholars were exempt from religious or financial pressures. Maclean’s chosen example is the literary agent and representative of international Calvinism, Melchior Goldast von Haiminsfeld, whose activities included opportunistic involvement in the political disputes of the day. Maclean surveys the predicament of underfunded authors, the activities of greedy publishing entrepreneurs, the fitful interventions of regimes of censorship and licensing, and the struggles faced by sellers and buyers to achieve their ends in an increasingly overheated market. The story ends with an account of the dramatic decline of the scholarly book trade in the 1620s, and the connivance of humanist scholars in the values of the commercial world through which they aspired to international recognition. Their fate invites comparison with today’s writers of learned books, as they too come to terms with new technologies and changing academic environments.
Content:
This study of the learned book trade of the late Renaissance reveals how many features of today’s publishing world were in place even then. Beginning in Frankfurt, Maclean surveys the authors, publishers, censors, and sellers who operated in this fraught religious atmosphere and overheated market, and ends with the market’s decline in the 1620s.
Note:
Frontmatter --
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Contents --
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Conventions of Transcription --
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Illustrations --
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Acknowledgments --
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Chapter one. Setting the Scene --
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Chapter two. In Medias Res: A Literary Agent in Frankfurt, 1606–1615 --
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Chapter three. Authors, Fields, and Genres --
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Chapter four. Labor, Impensa, Emolumentum: The Publisher of Learned Books --
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Chapter five. Controlling the Market: Temporal and Ecclesiastical Authorities --
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Chapter six. Sellers and Purchasers: Markets, Distribution, and Collection- Building --
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Chapter seven. The Rise and Fall of the Learned Book Market, 1560–1630 --
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Chapter eight. Postscript: Then and Now --
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Notes --
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Bibliography --
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Index.
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In English.
Language:
English
DOI:
10.4159/harvard.9780674065321
URL:
https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065321
URL:
https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065321
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