Enfilade

Newly available in paperback from Liverpool UP:

Caroline Archer-Parré and Malcolm Dick, eds., Pen, Print, and Communication in the Eighteenth Century (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1789622300 (hardcover), $150 / ISBN: 978-1802078800 (paperback), $50.

During the eighteenth century there was a growing interest in recording, listing, and documenting the world, whether for personal interest and private consumption, or general record and the greater good. Such documentation was done through both the written and printed word. Each genre had its own material conventions and spawned industries which supported these practices. This volume considers writing and printing in parallel: it highlights the intersections between the two methods of communication; discusses the medium and materiality of the message; considers how writing and printing were deployed in the construction of personal and cultural identities; and explores the different dimensions surrounding the production, distribution, and consumption of private and public letters, words, and texts during the eighteenth-century. In combination the chapters in this volume consider how the processes of both writing and printing contributed to the creation of cultural identity and taste, assisted in the spread of knowledge and furthered personal, political, economic, social, and cultural change in Britain and the wider-world. This volume provides an original narrative on the nature of communication and brings a fresh perspective on printing history, print culture, and the literate society of the Enlightenment.

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. He co-directs the Centre for Printing History & Culture.

c o n t e n t s

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction — Caroline Archer-Parré and Malcolm Dick
1  The Growth of Copperplate Script: Joseph Champion and The Universal Penman — Nicolas Barker
2  Authorship in Script and Print: The Example of Engraved Handwriting Manuals of the Eighteenth Century — Giles Bergel
3  Writing and the Preservation of Cultural Identity: The Penmanship Manuals of Zaharija Orfelin — Persida Lazarević Di Giacomo
4  ‘The Most Beautiful Hand’: John Byrom and the Aesthetics of Shorthand — Timothy Underhill
5  An Archaeology of the Letter Writing: The Correspondence of Aristocratic Women in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century England — Ruth Larsen
6  Private Pleasures and Portable Presses: Do-It-Yourself Printers in the Eighteenth Century — Caroline Archer-Parré
7  Performance and Print Culture: Two Eighteenth-Century Actresses and Their Image Control — Joanna Jarvis
8  Script, Print, and the Public/Private Divide: Sir David Ochterlony’s Dying Words — Callie Wilkinson
9  Identity, Enigma, Assemblage: John Baskerville’s Vocabulary, or Pocket Dictionary — Lynda Muggleston
10  Marigolds Not Manufacturing: Plants, Print, and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Birmingham — Elaine Mitchell
11  Tourist Experience and the Manufacturing Town: James Bisset’s Magnificent Directory of Birmingham — Jenni Dixon
12  Forging an Identity on the Periphery of the Enlightenment: Malta in Print in the Eighteenth-Century — Robert Thake
13  Perceptions of England: The Production and Reception of English Theatrical Publications in Germany and the Netherlands during the Eighteenth Century — Emil Rybczak
14  Print Culture and Distribution: Circulating the Federalist Papers in Post-Revolutionary America — Peter Pellizzari
15  The Serif-less Letters of John Soane — Jon Melton

Notes on the Contributors
Index