Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade

English Stationers and the Commodification of Botany

Häftad, Engelska, 2024

AvSarah Neville

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Between 1525 and 1640, a remarkable phenomenon occurred in the world of print: England saw the production of more than two dozen editions identified by their imprints or by contemporaries as 'herbals'. Sarah Neville explains how this genre grew from a series of tiny anonymous octavos to authoritative folio tomes with thousands of woodcuts, and how these curious works quickly became valuable commodities within a competitive print marketplace. Designed to serve readers across the social spectrum, these rich material artifacts represented both a profitable investment for publishers and an opportunity for authors to establish their credibility as botanists. Highlighting the shifting contingencies and regulations surrounding herbals and English printing during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the book argues that the construction of scientific authority in Renaissance England was inextricably tied up with the circumstances governing print. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2024-08-22
Mått152 x 229 x 17 mm
Vikt448 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor308
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781009013604

Tillhör följande kategorier

Prologue. Milton's trees; Introduction. Authorizing English botany; Part I. A History of Herbals: 1. Authorship, book history, and the effects of artifacts; 2. The stationers' company and constraints on English printing; 3. Salubrious illustration and the economics of English herbals; Part II. Anonymity in the Printed English Herbal: 4. Reframing competition: the curious case of the little Herball; 5. The Grete Herball and evidence in the margins; 6. 'Unpublished virtues of the earth': books of healing on the English renaissance stage; Part III. Authors and the Printed English Herbal: 7. William Turner and the medical book trade; 8. John Norton and the redemption of John Gerard.

'Sarah Neville's fascinating account of how stationers contributed to the creation of botanical texts brings English herbals and the early modern book trade together for the first time. Her reframing of their history irrevocably alters our sense of their importance for the publishers who commissioned them, the printers who manufactured them, and the booksellers who retailed herbals as well as for the Renaissance physicians, lay medical practitioners, and elite and common readers who so frequently consulted them. Early modern ecocritics will want to read this book along with book historians, historians of science, and those interested in Renaissance literature and culture.' Valerie Wayne, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa