University of Virginia Library

3. Using external records

As the third example, one might profitably study what is almost certainly
D. F. McKenzie's greatest scholarly achievement, his account of the
Cambridge University Press from 1696 through 1712. This two-volume
work consists of three parts: a monograph-length introduction about the
history, organization, and policy of the press, a descriptive bibliography of
items printed there, and a transcription of press records (which are notable
among other reasons for their identification of actual employees). Any one
of these sections would be a major contribution by itself, and their combination
gives the study unparalleled strength as McKenzie uses the records
and his direct scrutiny of the artifacts they describe to provide a narrative of
the production of books.

The study's third chapter, "Organization and Production," is typical of
McKenzie's success in reconciling and giving narrative shape to his two
main sources of information, the books themselves and the records about
them. In this particular essay he explores how the press worked: who governed
it, who superintended the work flow, and who actually performed the
physical labor. One of the great values of the extensive records transcribed
here is the detail they provide about aspects of production that are otherwise
unrecoverable, such as the names, stints, and pay dates of compositors,
pressmen, and correctors, the terms of payment by the customer, the number
of copies printed, and the (frequently irregular) movement of a project
through the press. The accounts of the four editions of Thomas Bennet's
An Answer to the Dissenters Pleas for Separation that the press printed from
1699 to 1707 illustrate many such features. With regard to edition size, for
example, the Minute Book records that on 7 June 1699 the Curators agreed
to print up to seven hundred and fifty copies of the first edition for the
customer, the bookseller Alexander Bosvile, but when the book sold well
they soon agreed (at their meeting of 20 December that year) to print a second
edition of one thousand. In 1701 they raised the print run of a third edition
to two thousand, and then eventually printed the book one more time six
years later, in a final edition of twelve hundred and fifty. Bosvile's payment
terms are likewise specified in the Minute Book, while the Vouchers itemize
the charges for individual sheets as they were produced.

McKenzie's essay also draws on his examination of the books themselves,
many details of which are recorded in the bibliographical descriptions. Only
by looking at the actual objects is he able to offer generalizations about daily
facts of the worker's lives, such as which side of each sheet they tended to
print first, or how they reused skeleton formes. Only by checking the books
can he identify a leaf whose replacement is not noted in the records (leaf A2
in the first edition), and only from them can he glean data about the type
fonts used and about the size of the printed pages.

But McKenzie also shows that the scholar's task is more than to piece

together the insights from different sources, for the sources themselves require
interpretation. Sometimes the challenge is simply to organize the data
into generalizations, as he does when he compares the title-page dates on
books with the dates of the completion of printing as reported in the records
(1:145). But the evidence of each source also needs evaluation, and when
the findings do not mesh they require reconciliation. Though the printing
records would seem to be a "primary" source, with respect to the books they
are secondary, for they are reports of events represented by the books themselves.
Thus, when for the first edition the compositor Bertram twice claims
having set gathering U, McKenzie points out that "the first of these claims
was presumably in error for T"—implicitly because the book itself has only
one gathering U but also a gathering T, and no compositor has claimed T.
Likewise for the printers of the second edition: "Cotton and Ponder claimed
twice for K, but the later of these claims is almost certainly in error for R."
(All statements should be assessed, of course, even if there is nothing apparently
wrong with them.) Meanwhile, interpreting the books is in turn helped
by the records, which can draw attention to features that might otherwise
be overlooked. Vouchers for the first edition record composition and printing
of a half sheet for gathering L, but, says McKenzie, "I cannot be sure
from the one copy seen which leaves were cancelled." Without the records,
this alteration might have passed unnoticed—though it is also possible that
L was not changed at all in the particular copy that McKenzie checked.
Even in the report of his own uncertainty McKenzie serves as a model: he is
straightforward about what he has found (or been unable to find), and he
signals the ultimate importance of examining multiple copies, even if circumstances
limited him to a single one.