Print Culture, Agency, and Regionality in the Hand Press Period

Description

Print Culture, Agency, and Regionality in the Hand Press Period illuminates the diverse ways that people in the British regional print trades exerted their agency through interventions in regional and national politics as well as their civic, commercial, and cultural contributions. Works printed in regional communities were a crucial part of developing narratives of local industrial, technological, and ideological progression. By moving away from understanding of print cultures outside of London as ‘provincial’, however, this book argues for a new understanding of ‘region’ as part of a network of places, emphasising opportunities for collaboration and creation that demonstrate the key role of regions within larger communities extending from the nation to the emerging sense of globality in this period. Through investigations of the men and women of the print trades outside of London, this collection casts new light on the strategies of self-representation evident in the work of regional print cultures, as well as their contributions to individual regional identities and national narratives. Acknowledgements Contents Notes on Contributors Abbreviations List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Introduction: Print Culture, Agency, Regionality Introduction Histories and Terms: Regionality, Agency Scholarly Positions Regions of the Book Bibliography Part I: Yorkshire Chapter 2: Printed by Alice Broade: The Career of York’s First Female Printer, 1661–1680 Introduction Women in the Print Trades Alice Broad in York Stephen Bulkley’s Return to York Bibliography Chapter 3: Historiography, Regionality, and Print Trade Life Writing: The Case of Mr Thomas Gent, Printer, of York Introduction Adventures in London and York Writing Regional History Features of the Life Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 4: The Newspaper, the Bookshop, and the Radical Society: Joseph Gales’ Hartshead Press and the ‘Reading and Thinking People of Sheffield’ Introduction Joseph Gales and the Hartshead Press Concealing Agency: The Register as Reservoir Masthead as Shop Window: Locke and the Rights of Man Narrating Posterity, Forging Sheffield Conclusion Bibliography Part II: Circulation and Networks Chapter 5: Printing, Publishing, and Pocket Book Compiling: Ann Fisher’s Hidden Labour in the Newcastle Book Trade Introduction Publishing Poems, Chiefly Pastoral Making the Memorandum-Book Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 6: Elizabeth Davison and the Circulation of Chapbooks in Early Nineteenth-Century Northumberland Introduction Song Chapbooks in Scotland and Northern England Elizabeth Davison and Wooler The Davison Chapbook Collection (i) Songs of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (ii) ‘National Songs’ (iii) Romantic and Sentimental Lyric Songs, ‘Scotch Songs’ (iv) Stage-Irish and Comic Songs (v) Local Songs (vi) Topical Songs and Songs of Social Comment (vii) Folk Songs and Ballads Reading the Collection Appendix: Elizabeth Davison’s Collection of Chapbooks (London, British Library, 11606.aa.22–24) London, British Library, 11606.aa.22 London, British Library, 11606.aa.23 London, British Library, 11606.aa.24 Bibliography Part III: Regions and Nations Chapter 7: ‘The Privilege Granted to the Printer’: The Role of James VI in the Scottish Print Trade 1567–1603 Introduction Patronage and the Scottish Print Trade James VI and His Early Printers: Robert Lekprevik and Alexander Arbuthnot James VI and Thomas Vautrollier James VI and Henry Charteris Robert Waldegrave in Scotland 1589–1603 James VI, Robert Waldegrave, and Anglo-Scottish Succession Literature Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 8: Print Agency and Civic Press Identity Across the Border: Commerce and Regional Improvement in the Glasgow Advertiser, Liverpool General Advertiser, and the Urban Directories of Liverpool and Glasgow, 1765–1795 Introduction Regional Commercial Improvement in John Mennons’ Glasgow Advertiser Regional Commercial Improvement in John Gore’s Liverpool General Advertiser A ‘handbook of useful local information’: Mapping Commercial Geographies in Liverpool and Glasgow Representing Scotland’s National Public Sphere: John Mennons’ Glasgow Almanacks Bibliography Part IV: Technology Chapter 9: For Lack of Letters: Early Typographical Shibboleths of English and Other Foreign Languages Introduction The Problem: A Lack of Type The Solution: Mixing Media English as a Foreign Language Kludged Ws as a Shibboleth of English Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 10: A New Type: Sans Serif Typography and Midlands Regional Identity Introduction Midlands Jobbing Printers and Population Growth The Political Printing of Hudson & Son Instructional Printing Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 11: Afterword Extending Agency Impressions of Place The Future of Regional Print Histories Bibliography Index