DANIEL ALLINGTON is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College, London. Widely published on readership and digital media issues, he co-edited Communicating in English: Talk, Text, Technology. DAVID A. BREWER is Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University, where he teaches book history and eighteenth-century literature. He is the author of The Afterlife of Character, 1726–1825, and was part of the Multigraph Collective that wrote Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation. STEPHEN COLCLOUGH (1969–2015) was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Bangor University, a renowned scholar of Victorian literature and culture, and the author of Consuming Texts: Readers and Reading Communities, 1695–1870. He founded The Bangor Centre for the History of the Book, which has since been renamed in his honor. SIÂN ECHARD is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches classes in Middle English literature, the Arthurian tradition, medievalism, and book history. She is the author of Printing the Middle Ages and Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition, and a general editor of The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain. ZACHARY LESSER is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a general editor of The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series, and the author of the award-winning books Renaissance Drama and the Politics of Publication and Hamlet After Q1: An Uncanny History of the Shakespearean Text.

“For book history courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level (which is surely where this is primarily aimed) it will be an invaluable introduction, not least because of the comprehensive citations throughout and the excellent bibliography which derives from them.” - John Feather (2019) The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction, Library & Information History, 35:4, 229-230

• Editor’s Note viiA Note on Money viiiList of Illustrations xIntroduction 1Part I The Middle Ages and the Renaissance 91 Early Beginnings to the Norman Conquest of 1066 112 From the High Middle Ages to the Coming of Print, 1066–1530 483 Consolidation and Control in the World of Print, 1530–1640 81Part II The Interregnum and the Long Eighteenth Century 1354 Politics and Periodicals, 1641–1695 1375 Partisan Strife and the World of Print, 1695–1740 1776 Managing the Flood of Print, 1740–1780 205Part III From the Nineteenth Century to the Modern Age 2277 Consolidating Change, 1780–1820 2298 The Distribution Revolution: Innovation and Diversity, 1820–1870 2519 The Age of Mass Production, 1870–1920 317Part IV The Twentieth and Twenty‐First Centuries 33910 Minority Culture and Popular Print, 1920–1940 34111 The Age of the Mass‐Market Paperback, 1940–1970 37112 Big Business and Digital Technology, 1970–2018 413References 461Index 506

DANIEL ALLINGTON is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College, London. Widely published on readership and digital media issues, he co-edited Communicating in English: Talk, Text, Technology. DAVID A. BREWER is Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University, where he teaches book history and eighteenth-century literature. He is the author of The Afterlife of Character, 1726–1825, and was part of the Multigraph Collective that wrote Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation. STEPHEN COLCLOUGH (1969–2015) was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Bangor University, a renowned scholar of Victorian literature and culture, and the author of Consuming Texts: Readers and Reading Communities, 1695–1870. He founded The Bangor Centre for the History of the Book, which has since been renamed in his honor. SIÂN ECHARD is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches classes in Middle English literature, the Arthurian tradition, medievalism, and book history. She is the author of Printing the Middle Ages and Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition, and a general editor of The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain. ZACHARY LESSER is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a general editor of The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series, and the author of the award-winning books Renaissance Drama and the Politics of Publication and Hamlet After Q1: An Uncanny History of the Shakespearean Text.

“For book history courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level (which is surely where this is primarily aimed) it will be an invaluable introduction, not least because of the comprehensive citations throughout and the excellent bibliography which derives from them.” - John Feather (2019) The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction, Library & Information History, 35:4, 229-230

• Editor’s Note viiA Note on Money viiiList of Illustrations xIntroduction 1Part I The Middle Ages and the Renaissance 91 Early Beginnings to the Norman Conquest of 1066 112 From the High Middle Ages to the Coming of Print, 1066–1530 483 Consolidation and Control in the World of Print, 1530–1640 81Part II The Interregnum and the Long Eighteenth Century 1354 Politics and Periodicals, 1641–1695 1375 Partisan Strife and the World of Print, 1695–1740 1776 Managing the Flood of Print, 1740–1780 205Part III From the Nineteenth Century to the Modern Age 2277 Consolidating Change, 1780–1820 2298 The Distribution Revolution: Innovation and Diversity, 1820–1870 2519 The Age of Mass Production, 1870–1920 317Part IV The Twentieth and Twenty‐First Centuries 33910 Minority Culture and Popular Print, 1920–1940 34111 The Age of the Mass‐Market Paperback, 1940–1970 37112 Big Business and Digital Technology, 1970–2018 413References 461Index 506