Social Authorship and the Advent of Print

"In this study of the development of literary industry and authorship in early modern Britain, Margaret Ezell examines the forces at work at a time when print technology was in competition with older manuscript authorship practices and the legal status of authors was being transformed. She also explores the literary concepts that subsequently developed out of new commercial practices, such as the rise of the "classic" text and the marketing of uniform series editions."--BOOK JACKET. "Ezell's interdisciplinary approach draws together the history of the book and cultural history. The result allows the reader a glimpse of literary life as practiced by "social" authors in the context of the development of commercial publishing and the formalization of copyright laws defining texts and authors."--BOOK JACKET.

First sentence: This collection of essays looks at the material conditions of being an author at the turn of the seventeenth century and at literary culture immediately preceding the institution of copyright law in Britain.

Year

1999

Language

English

Publisher

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Editions

1

Pages

200

ISBN

9780801877377

Data source: Wikidata