Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century

Caroline Archer-Parré is Professor of Typography at Birmingham City University, Director of the Centre for Printing History & Culture and Chairman of the Baskerville Society. She is the author of The Kynoch Press, 1876-1982: the anatomy of a printing house, (British Library, 2000); Paris Underground (MBP, 2004); and Tart cards: London’s illicit advertising art (MBP, 2003). Caroline is currently Co-investigator on the AHRC-funded project, ‘Letterpress Printing: past, present, future’. Malcolm Dick is Director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham. He directed two history projects in Birmingham between 2000 and 2004: the Millennibrum Project, which created a multi-media archive of post-1945 Birmingham history and Revolutionary Players which produced an online resource of the history of the West Midlands region. Malcolm has published books on Joseph Priestley, Matthew Boulton and the history of Birmingham and co-directs the Centre for Printing History & Culture.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction, Caroline Archer-Parré and Malcolm Dick1. The Growth of Copperplate Script: Joseph Champion and The Universal Penman, Nicolas Barker2. Authorship in script and print: the example of engraved handwriting manuals of the eighteenth century, Giles Bergel3.Writing and the preservation of cultural identity: the penmanship manuals of Zaharija Orfelin, Persida Lazarević Di Giacomo4. ‘The most beautiful hand’: John Byrom and the aesthetics of shorthand, Timothy Underhill5. An Archaeology of the Letter Writing: the correspondence of aristocratic women in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, Ruth Larsen6. Private pleasures and portable presses: do-it-yourself printers in the eighteenth-century, Caroline Archer-Parré7. Performance and print culture: two eighteenth-century actresses and their image control, Joanna Jarvis8. Script, print, and the public/private divide: Sir David Ochterlony’s dying words, Callie Wilkinson9. Identity, enigma, assemblage: John Baskerville’s Vocabulary, or Pocket Dictionary, Lynda Muggleston10. Marigolds not manufacturing: plants, print and commerce in eighteenth-century Birmingham, Elaine Mitchell11. Tourist Experience and the Manufacturing Town: James Bisset’s Magnificent Directory of Birmingham, Jenni Dixon12. Forging an identity on the periphery of the Enlightenment: Malta in print in the eighteenth-century, Robert Thake13. Perceptions of England: the production and reception of English theatrical publications in Germany and the Netherlands during the eighteenth century, Emil Rybczak14. Print Culture and Distribution: Circulating the Federalist Papers in post-Revolutionary America, Peter Pellizzari15. The serif-less letters of John Soane, Jon MeltonNotes on the ContributorsIndex

'Highly recommended as an introduction to the important topic of the rich and complex roles of handwriting and print in the social and cultural melting-pot of the eighteenth century.' John Hinks, Midland History