University of Virginia Library

2. Periodization

How do the time periods we routinely use to demarcate our book-historical
investigations shape our understandings by opening up certain perspectives
while foreclosing others? The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain,

Volume 5 begins with a specific event, the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695,
and ends with the generalized marker of 1830, a date that serves as a terminus
ad quem by which the industrialization of the book is firmly established.
Thus, CHBB5 chronicles the proliferation of print, the rise of what Samuel
Johnson called "the common reader," and the efflorescence of a thoroughgoing
"print culture" in Britain. One practical problem we have encountered
is that very few scholars are comfortable covering the whole period 16951830;
many students of the eighteenth century do not dare to trespass beyond
the French Revolution, or 1800, or the start of George IV's Regency in
1811. Of course, this difficulty obtains in the other direction as well: scholars
of the "Romantic Age" (roughly, 1789-1832) are typically loathe to delve into
the early or mid eighteenth century. Periodization is a practical matter, of
course, but it also profoundly influences how groups of scholars conceptualize
and write about developments in the production, distribution, and reception
of printed matter. Just as the periodization of literary history has had a
thoroughgoing effect on how that subject is researched, taught, studied, and
understood, so too do the ways in which we partition book history, both
national and international, have a significant impact on future patterns of
perception and knowledge.

In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain we have sometimes
selected boundaries based on particularly significant legal developments
(e.g., the granting of the royal charter to the Stationers' Company in 1557
and the lapse of Licensing), sometimes delineated major changes in the conduct
of the book trade (such as the industrialization of book production),
and sometimes chosen temporal limits rooted in a more general heuristic
purpose (e.g., 1400 "when Geoffrey Chaucer died" for the start of Volume 3.
or 2000 for the end of Volume 7 and the History itself).[11] All this seems
straightforward enough. Yet, mindful that the forms our questions take
often dictate the nature of the answers we develop, it may be salutary to
interrogate the matter of periodization in book history, if only as a means
of revealing our tacit assumptions and often-unarticulated biases. Every
period construction necessarily promotes certain kinds of observations while
obscuring others.

One way of thinking about periods might be to give more consideration
to the kinds of books being produced. If, for example, religious and theological
works overwhelmingly constitute the largest category of publishing
activity for the first three centuries of printing, then should ecclesiastical
and theological developments and events not enter more fully into delineating
our concepts of print culture in the hand-press period? Neither Shakespeare
nor Pope, but John Wesley, is the most published individual author
in eighteenth-century Britain, while the best-selling corporate works are, of
course, the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.[12] For play texts, it might

well make sense to consider the so-called "long Restoration" from the reopening
of the theaters in 1660 to the establishment of stage licensing in
1737. Such a category could help book historians discern more clearly the
complex relationships between dramatic productions of the stage and the
production and publishing of the dramatic page. Practitioners of book history
have often adhered to traditional divisons operative in either literary
or political history because we have inherited these temporal categories as
a consequence of our professional training. Yet, it is by no means clear how
the reign of Queen Victoria—or, as some prefer, the interval from the passage
of the Reform Act (1832) to the accession of Edward VIII (1901)—is
especially meaningful for book history as an investigative tool for framing
our inquiries, however well it may serve as an heuristic expedient.

As we strive to move toward more international histories of the book,
should we use wars, or treaties bearing on trade, or the invention of technologies
to demarcate the field? Employing technological milestones seems especially
appealing, at least for pan-European book history, though such markers
in a global context are of limited utility during most of the history of printing.
For certain kinds of works, thinking about the timeframes of international,
intellectual, or cultural history can help book historians to cross new
boundaries and consider their subjects from a fresh perspective. The notion
of the Romantic century, 1750-1850, for example, could stimulate new
research.[13] Considering the ways that book histories might be most helpfully
partitioned, we may decide that national histories ought to be rich with
"thick description" that attends closely to the significance of local events and
circumstances, while international accounts could reasonably adhere to a
different chronology in seeking to establish a more capacious view.[14]

There is a sizeable body of scholarly literature on periodization, but
book historians have generally seemed unconcerned about how the partitioning
of history affects our perceptions and conditions our understandings.[15]
One instance of a temporal boundary that has had a profound effect

on scholarly research and the structure of our investigations is the decision
to terminate the English Short-Title Catalogue at 1800, thereby forestalling
the possibility of our having a comprehensive bibliography of the hand-press
book in Britain.[16] The consequent lack of bibliographical control for 18011830
vitiates scholars' ability to understand more fully the impact of many
significant developments on the book trade, including: government censorship
of the press as a response to Radicalism; changes in banking and credit
arrangements that fostered the shift from bookselling to publishing; and
technological innovations such as stereotyping, lithography, the advent of
iron presses (Stanhope, Columbian, Albion, etc.), and the mechanization of
paper production. It is a lamentable reality that virtually all the statistical
data presented in CHBB5 necessarily terminates in 1800. The Nineteenth-Century
Short-Title Catalogue, based on radically different principles than
the ESTC, does not pretend to the same inclusiveness and is particularly
weak in provincial printing, which in the decades under discussion accounts
for the production of vast numbers of titles.[17]