Book Publishing

C

Legal and Business Aspects of Publishing

Once their books are on the market, authors and publishers can encounter some legal problems. For example, in the United States, books have been subject to forms of political censorship. A case in point was the attempt of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to suppress or change books written by its former agents. Textbooks, which may be criticized on political, religious, and sexual grounds, sometimes come under attack as well. Books are also sometimes challenged in court on grounds of invasion of privacy and defamation of character.

A significant development in the book trade in the mid- and late 20th century was the growing incidence of mergers, particularly the acquisition of publishing houses by large companies with other media businesses. The book business had traditionally been run by families, with control passing from one generation to the next. But the tremendous growth of publishing led to the need for new capital, which was acquired through public stock issues and mergers. Later merger activity included the acquisition of several major American publishers by foreign-owned companies, and the pattern that began taking shape was one of a superstructure of immense, international media conglomerates, surrounded by smaller, more specialized publishing houses.

III

History

In Ancient Greece, the first regular sales of literary work probably were carried on by students of the philosopher Plato, who sold or rented transcripts of his lectures. By 400 bc Athens was the literary capital of Greece and the center for the production and selling of scrolls and papyri. The first Athenian booksellers prepared their own scrolls, but later entrepreneurs employed staffs of copyists and not only sold and rented manuscripts but also held readings in their shops for paying audiences.

About 250 bc, Alexandria, Egypt, became one of the great book marts of the world. The first publishing and bookselling there occurred in connection with the Library of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I. By training numbers of skilled scribes and exploiting the distributing facilities afforded by the commercial connections of their capital, Alexandrian publishers retained control of the greater part of world book production for more than two centuries.

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In Ancient Rome the first publishers were wealthy men with literary taste who could afford the valuable slaves who served as scribes. By the end of the 1st century ad the book trade in Rome and other large cities of the empire was flourishing. After the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople (present-day İstanbul, Turkey) in ad 330, however, literary activities in Rome rapidly declined.

A

Middle Ages

Traveling booksellers were common figures in Europe in the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century), but in the early Middle Ages bookmaking was largely a monopoly of the scriptoria, or writing rooms, of monasteries. For some centuries books written in the monasteries were produced for the exclusive use of the monks or their pupils. Therefore, for centuries the knowledge of reading and writing remained confined to the clerics. Later, under the influence of certain princes who owed their early education to monastery schools, the libraries of kings and nobles acquired manuscripts of the world's literature.

Later in the Middle Ages, bookselling was stimulated by the rise of universities, particularly the University of Paris in France and the University of Bologna in Italy. The universities supervised the preparation of textbooks and literary works and also prescribed the rates at which the books were to be sold or leased. The booksellers, known as stationarii, usually were university officials or graduates. The stationarii of the University of Paris supplied not only the university but nearly all the scholars of Europe. The stationarii at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England began their work some years later than those in Paris or Bologna. Without the restrictions that hampered the freedom of the French and Italian scribes, their business flourished.

B

Development of the Publishing Industry

Modern publishing and bookselling in Europe began in the mid-15th century, when people began printing with movable type. The first professional printers often served as editors of the works they produced and then sold them directly to readers; they employed agents at universities to sell their books there. Anton Koberger, who in 1470 became the first printer to establish a business in Nürnberg, had 16 shops, as well as book agents in almost every city in the Christian world. German printers Peter Schöffer and Johann Fust, a partner of Johannes Gutenberg, offered their books at prices far below those charged for manuscripts.

The publisher with the greatest influence on the literature and civilization of this period was Aldus Manutius of Venice, Italy. The high scholarly ideals and unselfish labors of Manutius and his immediate successors, as well as the imagination, ingenuity, and persistence of Gutenberg and Fust, led to the distribution of Greek poetry and philosophy in Europe in the late 15th century. In the organization of his printing and publishing business Manutius overcame many obstacles, such as the necessity of training Italian typesetters to set Greek texts and the delivery of books from Venice to different points of the European continent.

Other outstanding publisher-booksellers of this period included William Caxton, who set up a printing business in Westminster, England, in 1476 and was the first to introduce books printed in the English language. Caxton published many of his own translations of Latin, French, and Dutch works. German printer Johann Froben founded a publishing establishment in Basel, Switzerland, that became noted for the artistic taste and scrupulous accuracy of the books it produced.

A publishing enterprise of minor commercial importance that enormously influenced public opinion in Europe was instituted in the German town of Wittenberg in Saxony (Sachsen), in 1517, at the instigation of German religious reformers Martin Luther and Melanchthon. The pamphlets from this press, reprinted in other places by printers sympathetic to Luther, secured an extremely wide circulation.

For a time during the 16th and 17th centuries, the principal bookselling centers were a number of cities in the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands), but by the 18th century publishing companies had been established in the major cities of Europe. Some of them lasted into the 21st century.

C

Book Trade in Colonial North America

Printing in the English colonies in North America dates from 1639, when Stephen Day printed the Freeman's Oath and an Almanack at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The famous Bay Psalm Book appeared the following year. Day's press turned out one title a year for the next 21 years.

The Cambridge Press, as it was later called, was the principal press in the colonies until 1674, when a press started in Boston, Massachusetts. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had a press by 1685 and New York City had one by 1693. The first press to produce a book in Canada was established in Québec City in 1764. In many of these early presses, printers were both publishers and booksellers. Books were their first products, then newspapers, and later magazines. All three were prepared in the printshop itself, and the front of the establishment was used to sell the works that came off the press, along with various household items.

This colonial pattern was repeated everywhere, as printing moved across the continent with the tide of settlement. Presses were moved westward on wagons and on rafts and small boats. Wherever the printer settled, the shop was set up to print and sell its products. Often these shops were family affairs, and many women became printers and worked alongside their husbands, sometimes carrying on alone when they were widowed.

Before the American Revolution (1775-1783), printers and the books, pamphlets, and broadsides they produced became important in the organization of the growing protest against British rule. Printshops were the focal points of dissent, and the material that was printed both inspired and consolidated the revolutionaries.

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