The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture: Volume One: Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660

by Joad Raymond

Overview

What did most people read? Where did they get it? Where did it come from? What were its uses in its readers' lives? How was it produced and distributed? What were its relations to the wider world of print culture? How did it develop over time? These questions are central toThe Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, an ambitious nine-volume series devoted to the exploration of popular print culture in English from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present.

Between the beginning of the sixteenth century and the later seventeenth, governments, institutions and individuals learned to use inexpensively-produced printed texts to inform, entertain, and persuade. Cheap print quickly became rooted in British and Irish culture, both elite and popular. This substantial and authoritative collection of essays - the first of its kind - examines the developing role of popular printed texts in the first two centuries of print in Britain and Ireland. Its forty-five chapters (with sixty-six illustrations) look at a broad range of historical and social contexts, at comparisons with other European countries, at the variety of content and themes in cheap printed texts, the forms and genres that developed with and were used by cheap print, and concludes with a series of case studies exploring the role of print in particular years. The book takes none of these terms - Popular, Print, Culture - for granted, but interrogates each of them with a rich, contoured picture of the relationship between a popular readership, the materiality of books, the economy of the book trade, and political and cultural history. Its forty-two contributors come from different disciplines and with expertise in fields from political and book history, through visual and material culture, to rhetoric and literature. These contributors do not all agree on definitions, or on the history that underlies them, but instead establish the ground for future debates and examinations of the role of cheap print in early-modern Britain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199287048
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/24/2011
Series:	Oxford History of Popular Print Culture
Pages:	704
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Joad Raymond is Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia. His work explores early newspapers, politics, religion, and literary history, and the connections between these. Previous books include The Invention of the Newspaper (OUP, 1996), Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (CUP, 2003), Milton's Angels: The Early Modern Imagination (OUP, 2010) and various essays and edited books. He is presently editing Milton's Latin Defences for The Oxford Complete Works of John Milton, and also working on a project investigating early-modern international news networks.

Table of Contents

PrefaceList of TablesList of IllustrationsNotes on ConventionsNotes on ContributorsChronology1. Introduction: the origins of popular print culture, Joad RaymondPart one: Historical Contexts2. England and Wales, Mike Braddick3. Scotland, Hamish Mathison4. Ireland, Jane Ohlmeyer5. Popular, Plebeian, Culture: Historical Definitions, Tim Harris6. The Development of the Book Trade in Britain, Joad Raymond7. Printing, Learning and the Unlearned, Anna Bayman8. Popular Literacy and Society, Heidi Hackel9. Reading Strategies, Stephen Dobranski10. Oral Culture and Popular Print, Julie Crawford11. Manuscript Culture and Popular Print, Andrew McRae12. Libel, Alastair Bellany13. The Social Life of Books, William H. ShermanPart two: Some International Comparisons14. France and Spain, Roger Chartier15. Italy, Ottavia Niccoli16. The Netherlands, Margit Thofner17. Germany, Alisha RankinPart three: Themes18. Religion and Cheap Print, Peter Lake19. Rhetoric, David Colclough20. Political Argument, Markku Peltonen21. Images, Representation, and Counter-Representation, Helen Pierce22. Women and Print, Sara Mendelson23. London, Mark Jenner24. Parliament and the Press, Thomas Cogswell25. War, Nicole GreenspanPart four: Forms and Genres26. Ballads and Broadsides, Angela McShane27. Romance, Lori Newcomb28. News, Joad Raymond29. Science, Simon Schaffer30. Popular Medical Writing, Mary Fissell31. Almanacs and Prognostications, Lauren Kassell32. Popular History, Peter Burke33. Pamphlets, Jason Peacey34. Chapbooks, Lori Newcomb35. Sermons, Primers, and Prayer Books, Mary Morrissey36. Popular Didactic Literature, Natasha Glaisyer37. Playbooks, Zachary LesserPart five: Case Studies38. 1535, Tracey Sowerby39. 1553, Cathy Shrank40. 1588-9, Jesse Lander41. 1603, Matthew Woodcock42. 1625, Thomas Cogswell43. 1641, Jason McElligott44. 1649, Martin Dzelzainis45. 1660, Gerald MacLeanBibliography