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Described by the TLS as 'a formidable bibliographical achievement … destined to become a key reference work for Shakespeareans', Shakespeare in Print is now issued in a revised and expanded edition offering a wealth of new material, including a chapter which maps the history of digital editions from the earliest computer-generated texts to the very latest digital resources. Murphy's narrative offers a masterful overview of the history of Shakespeare publishing and editing, teasing out the greater cultural significance of the ways in which the plays and poems have been disseminated and received over the centuries from Shakespeare's time to our own. The opening chapters have been completely rewritten to offer close engagement with the careers of the network of publishers and printers who first brought Shakespeare to print, additional material has been added to all chapters, and the chronological appendix has been updated and expanded.
The archives of the Stationers' Company provide our richest source of biographical material for members of the London book trades. The eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth saw a growth in the membership of the Company, an improvement in the record keeping and a wider range of information being recorded. Moreover, during this period the Company remained predominantly tied to the members of the book trade when other City companies were relaxing their guild connections. The English Stock was a joint trading company operated from within the Stationers' Company itself. There is a large area of the records where the information will lead to a fuller understanding of the sociology of the Company and the London trade. These relate to the paying of pensions and giving of charity to the less financially successful members of the Company.
By the 1650s, the Stationers' Company was attempting to stem the tide of piracy by buying counterfeit almanacks, and taking legal action against offending printers. Transgressors who belonged to the Company, many of whom printed for the English Stock, were summoned to appear before the Court. The Company continued to pounce on the sellers of unstamped almanacks, but, even by 1750, several formidable individuals had begun to infringe upon and challenge the principle of perpetual copyright. In 1834, when the Stationers pressed for a further increase in stamp duty, Parliament 'decided that the privilege was outmoded and had been ill-requited and abolished the tax altogether'. At the same time the Company was attacked for failing in its moral duty by pandering to the superstitious and sensation-loving lower orders rather than publishing educational and improving works.
The immediate context of the Press Act was the wide-ranging legislative programme undertaken during the first session of the Cavalier Parliament from 8 May 1661 to 19 May 1662, a programme which a recent historian of that Parliament has characterized as 'the reconstruction of the old regime'. The three main concerns of the Act were with what may be called licensing, trade restrictions, and printing rights, which together represent the interests of the government and the Stationers' Company. The licensing provisions of the Printing Act were complex in practice, but simple in principle. There were long lists of specified licensers for various categories of books and elaborate rules on the number of manuscripts to be submitted. The Stationers' 'monopoly' was in fact the thing which most troubled opponents of the Act, though they were concerned, not so much with the Company's near-monopoly control over the working members of the trade.
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