Joseph Athias and the early history of stereotyping
TL;DR: Athias's primacy in the history of stereotyping is established by as mentioned in this paper, who found evidence that he had two English bibles in plates, one a twelvemo, the other an eighteenmo.
Abstract: There is circumstantial and documentary evidence that printing from stereotype plates was being undertaken by Joseph Athias in Amsterdam no later than September 1673. The terms of an agreement of that date between Athias and the Widow Schippers and Anna Maria Stam imply that he had two English bibles in plates, one a twelvemo, the other an eighteenmo. The eighteenmo can be equated with an edition with engraved title-page with the imprint 'Cambridge, Roger Daniel, 1648', the last in a sequence of four with the same imprint, each of which carries over from its predecessor a certain amount of setting. The earliest in the sequence appears to have been printed by Joachim Nosche in Amsterdam. That the fourth was impressed at least six times is suggested by the fact that it was printed on six or more discrete papers, thus implying that it was either kept standing or plated. That it was indeed plated at some stage of its life, and that the plates consisted of columns (not pages), is confirmed by the observable differences in alignment of the columns from exemplar to exemplar, particular alignments agreeing with particular papers. Athias's primacy in the history of stereotyping is thus established. From among the many librarians who have assisted me during this investigation I should like to thank in particular Dr Lotte Hellinga, whose advice in the early stages proved especially helpful. Earlier versions of the text were presented to: The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, Adelaide, August 1985; The Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, September 1985; The Bibliographical Society, London, April 1992.
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14 Nov 2002
TL;DR: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain this article covers the years between the incorporation of the Stationers' Company in 1557 and the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695.
Abstract: Volume 4 of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain covers the years between the incorporation of the Stationers' Company in 1557 and the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695. In a period marked by deep religious divisions, civil war and the uneasy settlement of the Restoration, printed texts - important as they were for disseminating religious and political ideas, both heterodox and state approved - interacted with oral and manuscript cultures. These years saw a growth in reading publics, from the developing mass market in almanacs, ABCs, chapbooks, ballads and news, to works of instruction and leisure. Atlases, maps and travel literature overlapped with the popular market but were also part of the project of empire. Alongside the creation of a literary canon and the establishment of literary publishing there was a tradition of dissenting publishing, while women's writing and reading became increasingly visible.
178 citations
01 Nov 2002
TL;DR: The use of a commonplace book was typical of university-trained readers, but Nicholas Byfield's Directions for the private reading of the Scriptures, first published in 1617 or 1618, was an attempt to make the practice more widespread among lay Bible readers as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Religious books, in conventional terms, are found to have been the single most important component of the publishing trade. In England, apart from oral communication, there was a mass of both polemical and devotional material which, if published, was published scribally, surviving only in manuscript. Some of the most active preachers of the age never appeared in print, or never in their lifetimes. A large part of the story of indoctrination concerns English Bibles, and there is no better case study of the interaction of public and private interest, commerce and edification, than the English Bible. Many of the Catholic books of the devotional writers included prefaces addressed to the impartial Christian reader, and not just to the Catholics. The use of a commonplace book was typical of university-trained readers, but Nicholas Byfield's Directions for the private reading of the Scriptures, first published in 1617 or 1618, was an attempt to make the practice more widespread among lay Bible readers.
84 citations