PREFACE.
In the general Preface to this work, printed in the first volume, I pointed out that an account of the production and distribution of books for the two centuries immediately succeeding the invention of printing, must, of necessity, be chiefly devoted to the operations of the printer-publishers of the period. During these centuries were produced a number of the great books of the world’s literature, but it was not possible, under the existing conditions, for the authors of these books to influence materially the relations of literature to the State or to the Church. Freedom of speech and even freedom of thought depended very largely upon an untrammelled printing-press, but the authors were able to give but little aid in the arduous task of securing from the political and ecclesiastical authorities the right to multiply books. It is true that the writers of the Reformation period were in a position to render very important coöperation in the work of developing a reading public and in the further work of creating machinery by means of which such public could be reached. But notwithstanding the noteworthy exception presented by the writings from Wittenberg and Geneva, it remains the fact that for the centuries in question, the works of contemporary authors constituted but an inconsiderable proportion of the books published.
The lists of these earlier publishers were devoted to editions of the complete Bible, and of the different groups of the Biblical books, editions of the Greek and Roman classics and of the works of the Church Fathers, and issues of certain philosophical treatises which also were largely the work of writers of an earlier generation. To these were added certain treatises on jurisprudence which came to be accepted as authorities in the universities, together with the various series of text-books adopted for college and for school work. With the above were occasionally associated books by contemporary writers, many of which became of continued importance. These formed, however, as said, but a very small group as compared with the long series of reissues of accepted classics, and it was by the latter that what might be called the literary conditions of the time were in the main determined. With the Reformation came an enormous increase in the production of works by living writers. The controversies of the period kept the printing-offices busy with the preparation of books and pamphlets devoted to present issues, and the great output of current controversial literature affected in several ways the conditions and the methods of publishing. Up to this time the books that had been published were nearly exclusively in the form of folios, quartos, or large octavos. With an occasional exception, such as that of the Aldine classics, the publishers and their scholarly customers appear to have taken the ground that if a work was entitled to the honour of being put into print, it was worthy of the most dignified form that the presses were capable of producing; and, as was shown, later, in the criticisms of correspondents of the Elzevirs and in other expressions, there was a strong feeling among scholarly readers that the printing of a work of literature in a sixteenmo or twelvemo volume, showed a lack of respect for the author, for his public, and for literature itself.
This prejudice in favour of portly volumes was very largely modified, although by no means entirely overcome, by the publications of the Reformation. The intense interest in the theological issues and the revival of religious fervour, brought into existence a new reading public. The buying of books was no longer confined to princes and scholars;—the masses of the people wanted to have in their hands the writings of the Reformers or the replies of the defenders of the Roman Church, and to an extent which is still cause for wonderment, a very large proportion of the common people were able to read and were eager to read the long series of argumentative essays many of which were devoted to themes and discussions that could be described as scholastic, and that the average citizen of to-day would certainly consider hard reading. To meet the requirements of this new reading public, requirements which called for material of small cost and in a form convenient for distribution, the pamphlet came into existence, and this was followed by the Flugschriften, or fly-leaf literature, comprising papers or tracts of such brief compass that they could be printed in four or even in two pages. These Flugschriften were carried in the packs of pedlars into the market-places of towns and villages and from farmhouse to farmhouse, and they secured a wide distribution even in territories in which their circulation was strictly prohibited under the severest of penalties. Some description of this feature of the literary work of the Reformation is given in the chapter on Luther.
While one result of the literary activity of the Reformation was to popularise the work of the printing-press, another was an immediate development of the censorship of the Press, both heretical and ecclesiastical. The contention that the productions of the printers must be subjected to the approval of the authorities of the State was made promptly after the printing-press began its work. It was, however, only when the Press came to be utilised as the most effective ally of the heretical reformers, that the Church found it necessary to put into force its ecclesiastical censorship, and that the never-ending task began of advertising through the various Indices Expurgatorii the titles of the long series of wicked or dangerous books which the faithful believers were warned not to read, and which brought very serious perils indeed upon the faithless heretics who persisted in writing, printing, selling, or possessing them.
The responsibility for the selection of the books to be printed, with the exception of the controversial writings of the Reformation period, rested with the publishers of the time, and the direction of the literary interests of the book-reading public (still, of course, a very small fraction of the community) must have been not a little influenced by the decisions arrived at by these publishers. I conclude, therefore, that the publishers of this period must have exerted a larger measure of influence over the direction of scholarly investigation and in the shaping of the literary opinions of their age, than has been possible for publishers in the subsequent centuries after the production of books had been enormously increased, and when all classes of the community had become readers.
In these later times the direction of the literary interests of the diverse circles of the reading public came naturally into the hands of the contemporary writers. While the reissue of the accepted classics of previous generations remained (and must always remain) an important division of the business of publishing, an ever increasing proportion of the work of the publishers came to be given to the comparatively routine work of distributing among readers the literature of the day, in the production of which literature the authors have, in part, led and directed, and, in part, simply followed and supplied the tastes and the demands of their readers.
The fact that the position and the personal influence of the earlier publishers were so exceptional in their character and importance is my excuse for presenting with some detail the record of the work of a few individuals and families selected as fairly representative of the class. It seemed to me necessary in so doing, even at the risk of adding to the dryness of the narrative, to include in the record lists of titles (selected from the catalogues) of the more important of the books issued by such representative publishers. These titles give in convenient form for reference, material from which can be secured not only an interesting indication of the personal interests and capacities of the publishers themselves but an impression of the literary tastes, requirements, and possibilities of the times and of the several communities in which the work of these publishers was done.
I judge that a work of this special character will be utilised rather for reference than for consecutive reading, and with this understanding, it has seemed to me desirable to make as complete as possible the record, presented in each section, of the subject matter considered in such section, even although such a method has rendered necessary an occasional repetition of statements of fact or of conclusions.
G. H. P.
New York, September, 1896.