This major, revisionist reference work explains for the first time how the Stationers' Company acquired both a charter and a nationwide monopoly of printing. In the most detailed and comprehensive investigation of the London book trade in any period, Peter Blayney systematically documents the story from 1501, when printing first established permanent roots inside the City boundaries, until the Stationers' Company was incorporated by royal charter in 1557. Having exhaustively re-examined original sources and scoured numerous archives unexplored by others in the field, Blayney radically revises accepted beliefs about such matters as the scale of native production versus importation, privileges and patents, and the regulation of printing by the Church, Crown and City. His persistent focus on individuals - most notably the families, rivals and successors of Richard Pynson, John Rastell and Robert Redman - keeps this study firmly grounded in the vivid lives and careers of early Tudor
This major, revisionist reference work explains for the first time how the Stationers' Company acquired both a charter and a nationwide monopoly of printing. In the most detailed and comprehensive investigation of the London book trade in any period, Peter Blayney systematically documents the story from 1501, when printing first established permanent roots inside the City boundaries, until the Stationers' Company was incorporated by royal charter in 1557. Having exhaustively re-examined original sources and scoured numerous archives unexplored by others in the field, Blayney radically revises accepted beliefs about such matters as the scale of native production versus importation, privileges and patents, and the regulation of printing by the Church, Crown and City. His persistent focus on individuals - most notably the families, rivals and successors of Richard Pynson, John Rastell and Robert Redman - keeps this study firmly grounded in the vivid lives and careers of early Tudor
This is a study of a seventeenth-century printer and one of the books that he printed. It is an attempt to solve the problem of the relationship between the Quarto and Folio texts of King Lear, and its main purpose is to establish the bibliographical facts which are essential to a proper investigation of the 1608 Quarto text. In order to provide a context in which to assess the significance of the printing process, Peter Blayney has had to study the first two years of Okes's career in some detail. He has also paid attention to the way in which Okes's work differed from that of his predecessors in the same printing house, while investigation of proof-sheets and printers' copy has led him to examine a number of Okes's later books. Although it is primarily concerned with the printing of a single book, the present volume can therefore claim independant status as a large-scale study of a Jacobean printing house.
Here is one of the essential books of English literature and culture, the justly famous First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, a full-size photographic facsimile that has won the admiration of actor
