Aldus, The London Book Trade (16th Century), Shakespeare, and the First Folio

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Published in 1559 in Rome, a book that contains lists of censored writers

The Stationers’ Company

Charted by the English Crown in 1557, it restricted the right to print to just two universities and to 21 existing printers in the city of London (overall 53 printing presses)

Aldus Manutius was the first major printer to insist on ______ ________.

scholarly editing

Aldus Manutius’ (1449/50-1515) printing press

The Aldine Press (1495-1588), Venice, the Renaissance

Aldus wanted to make classics available in print in these two languages:

Greek and Roman/Latin, and he did this by gathering Greek scholars

Aldus Manutius was the first to create ____ typeface.

Italic, which fit more words onto a page and saved the printer money

Aldus was the first to create this grammatical symbol in typeface:

Semicolon

What did the Aldine Press accomplish?

The Aldine Press was the first in the world to issue pocket-sized editions of books, printed in octavo format.

This new format was revolutionary, as it enabled readers to access books more easily rather than having to learn texts by heart.

What was the first book issued in the octavo format?

Works of the Virgil, printed in 1501

Aldus’ logo

Anchor with a fish wrapped around it

The London Book Trade and the Stationers’ Company

• 15th century

• No more than 24 printing houses (200 to 300 people)

• Organized and regulated by the Stationers’ Company, a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry

• Allowed publishers to document their right to produce a printed work and created an early form of copyright

• Stationers’ Company had the right to seize illicit editions and bar the publication of unlicensed books

What had to happen to a book before it was printed?

It had to be approved by authorities first; there was a fee for this, and the Stationers’ Company had to license it. The license gave the owner of the copy (publisher or printer) the right to print the text — the author of the book didn’t have rights to their work, or right to publish it.

What did Queen Mary Tudor do?

Give the Stationers’ Company permission to search homes and premises for materials objectionable to Catholics — Protestant bibles of any sort were destroyed

What was the role of printers?

They owned the type and printing presses and employed people to do the printing. They did not sell the books, but printed them for other businesses

Print runs were generally limited to around ____ copies at maximum as a consequence of high risk.

1000

What was the role of booksellers?

They ran the shops that sold books to the public — they usually weren’t printers themselves

What was the role of publishers?

They acquired the texts/copies of books, paid for them to be printed, and then sold them wholesale. Many publishers were booksellers, some were printers.

Refinements/steps of early English printing

• The writer/collaborator produces the manuscript using paper and pen.

• The writer then submits the manuscript to the Stationers’ Company, which either approves or censors it.

• The printer purchases the manuscript, hires workers and gets the supplies (ink/paper/bindings).

• Typesetters must read the manuscript clearly and set the type, then lock it up in the press (composing stick/chase), then ink the presses prior to the start of printing.

• Investors (called publishers) pay the printers for production and distribution to booksellers (warehousing).

• Booksellers then sell the books at markets, fairs, and in catalogs.

Imprints

“Printed by,” (printers) “sold by,” (booksellers) “printed for” (publishers)

Are there any surviving original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s work?

No

Is the famous engraving of Shakespeare accurate?

No

Bad quartos

Beginning in 1594, Shakespeare’s plays were published as quartos (small books) by pirate printshops, many not crediting Shakespeare as the author. The plays are usually different in length and have errors. The initial run was around 800 copies

Did people who attended Shakespeare’s plays want them read aloud?

No, they wanted to see them acted out

Who were Shakespeare’s close friends who created the First Folio?

John Heminge and Henry Condell

What was the content of the First Folio?

36 accurate versions of Shakespeare’s plays printed in book form

The First Folio was a ____________ of English printing

Masterpiece

What were the three categories of Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio?

Comedies, tragedies, and histories

What was the source material for the First Folio?

Good quartos, manuscripts, prompt books, fair copies, and foul papers (working drafts)

The print job for the First Folio required how much paper, and what was the imposition?

230 sheets of paper; a set of three sheets of paper printed on both sides and then nested together for a “gathering” (folio in sixes)

When was the First Folio produced?

1622 to 1623

How many of the plays in the First Folio had never been printed before?

18

Who were the printers hired for printing the First Folio?

William Jaggard and Edward Blount

Expenses and profit: The First Folio

• Copies sold for one pound each

• Everyone involved expected financial gain

• Printing it was a gamble

• Most expensive playbook offered to the English public

How many First Folios were printed?

750

The compositors

• There were 5 compositors for the First Folio, people who picked out the typeset.

• A-E

• A was the most accurate, E was the least accurate. Therefore A picked out the typeset for the most pages, while E worked on very little pages.

How many plays and pages did the First Folio have?

36 plays, 900 pages

The content of the First Folio was registered on…

November 8th, 1623

Hinman Collator

Developed between 1945 and 1949, it allowed comparison of different copies of the same printed text

All of the First Folios are…

In sixes and made from rag paper