Early Print

This collection brings together examples of early printing for use in teaching, especially the MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. The central decades of the fifteenth century witnessed the industrialization of book production, which must be understood as a series of interrelated developments, and not as a ‘big bang’. There are a number of questions to consider:

• How did the invention of printing with movable type relate to other technological innovations?
• Why did this particular innovation prove so successful? What difference did printing with movable type make, both to the mechanization of book production and to European literary culture?
• To what extent did new forms of printing change the design and layout of books, and so affect the forms and practise of reading?
• Why did manuscripts continue to be produced well after the invention of printing? How did printers find their markets, and choose which books to print?
• How was the process of the production of original works changed by the rise of print, if at all?
• What impact(s) did different forms of printing have on intellectual culture?