Johns 1998

Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Faust and the Pirates: The Cultural Construction of the Printing Revolution

"Print is often hard to analyze historically since it seems to be self-explanatory -- something needing only to be revealed, not create.d But this appearance veils real conflict in its history. We can hypothesize that a good way to uncover the making of modern print culture may be by searching for instances when the principles that are to us most essential to print were in fact in dispute." (325) -- "In the conduct of such a debate, then, we can see through the words of the participants their creation of print itself. By looking at the historiography of printing in the early modern period, we can open a window onto long-overlooked debates about the most elementary and fundamental characteristics of communication." (326)

no core of documents or textual evidence; only piece is legal document from 1455 naming Gutenberg and Fust dispute; there was no printed book bearing Gutenberg's name and even today we know of only 27 contemporary documents in which a Gutenberg was named, of which only 12 are extant and only 1 has to do with printing

"With such a shroud covering his identity, identifying the originator of printing became one of the most important problems in early modern historiography. Like the source of the Nile, the source of the press fascinated and attracted." (331)

1588 patriotic history Batavia, by Adrien de Jonghe, says printing was invented by Coster in Haarlem; Jonghe had heard it from an old man Cornelius, who claimed to have been servant to Coster; Coster cut letters from the bark of beech tree, liked the stain they made on his handkerchief, and then began making books with wooden movable type; Fust is said to have stolen this secret from Coster

-- idea of printing as beginning with notorious theft would persist

William Prynne, claimed Jonghe's story was true, Caxton then brought it to Westminster; origins of printing were then common and so wasn't subject to King's privilege

Atkyns and Streater countered by saying that "the craft was in fact the personal property of the monarch" (338), and did so by authoring a new history of printing in direct opposition to Prynne: king had sent Caxton and others to help bribe Frederick Corsellis from Gutenberg's workshop in Haarlem, he left and set up printing in Oxford; "hence it was that Oxford acquired the art of printing before any other city than Haarlem -- with the crucial exception of Mainz" (340); "Here, then, was a new history of the propriety of printing. If true, it implied that the press was entirely the product of royal action and investment, and that patents had been central to the development of an English book trade." (341)

"In these circumstances of profound controversy, every aspect of historical knowledge was rendered problematic. There was very little agreement even on what sort of person a 'historian of printing' ought to be." (344) -- best strategy for assessing a printed history was to judge its writers character

"The historiography of printing accordingly became the site for some of the most profound and far-reaching of contests in the ars historica. What would be accounted credible evidence, and in turn how the nature of printing would be conceived, ofen rested on such arguments about the character of a historian." (346)

development of footnotes -- "To confirm the authority of these resources they adopted a paraphernalia fo footnotes, endnotes, appendices, and citations that would become characteristic of later historical scholarship." (346)

"burgeoning antiquarian movement" helped on printing history and historiography (346)

Atkyns' case was built on Lambeth Palace manuscript, but no one had seen it; antiquarians looked for it; Bagford "noted that the Cavalier polemicist John Birkenhead had borrowed it from Lambeth in 1664-5 while advising Parliament about the possibility of passing a new, stronger Press Act" (347) -- "What matters, however, is that at this juncture nobody could assume that the document did not exist." not everyone could go to LPL to look for it, so took on credit it was there

around this time, rise of story of Corsellis as accepted fact; a Flanders immigrant named Corsellis was even buried in 1674 under a headstone lauding his ancestor (348)

Piracy and Usurpation: Natural Philosophy in the Restoration

Athenian Society -- "it existed only in print, but appeared more real than the real thing" (457)

can "avoid the troubles presented by print" by "vest[ing] faith in manuscript circulation" (458)

"One had to publish in order to avoid unauthorized revelation, yet publishing immediately entailed submission to the Stationers' culture." (459)

"claims of piracy were seldom just claims of piracy. There was always some accompanying allegation of textual corruption, misrepresentation or illicit appropriation." (460)

"the very doubt generated by charges of unauthorized publication created an opportunity for increased influence" (460)

in experimental natural philosophy, though charges of piracy were charges of transgression; often took the form of accusations of plagiarism (460)

most common term: no tpiracy or plagiary but "usurpation" (461)

"The prevalence of piracy and usurpation meant that whether printed professions could be trusted must always be contestable." (462)

natural philosophers created new genres of writing: the experimental paper, the philosophical journal, the book review, the editor, the experimental author (464) -- "much more than merely rhetorical concepts. They need to be appreciated in terms of practical responses to problems permeating the very character and use of printed reports" (465)

"The royal Society, like Isaac Newton's Trinitarians, could be seen as an authoritative center for natural knowledge because it mastered the use of the press." (465) -- RS had to work to create vision of neutral, ordered print culture (466)

Royal Society: gentility, witnessing, experiments, collectivity, openness, willingness to communicate

• "Unlike that of previously dominant institutions (such as the Stationers' court), the conduct of the virtuosi in dealing with written materials would be guaranteed by recognized conventiosn of civility, openly observed." (476)

modeled its work on the Stationers' Company; "embodied tis propriety in a book called a 'register', in which a matter of fact, experimental technique, theory, or paper could be 'entered' to record the name of its discoverer and the moment of its first discovery" (476)

patronage; presentation copies (482)

"perusal": "one or more selected fellows would 'peruse' the book, abstract or translate it, and report back to a subsequent meeting" (483); not everyone read all books, but trusted the judgment of the perusers

registration; after perusal, the Society might formally record its contribution in its register; observations, theories, books could be registered

Henry Oldenburg, acting as publisher; Philosophical Transactions (497-9)

Robert Boyle; work and notes routinely stolen; scrupulousness in keeping records for "virtual witnessing" made him susceptible to piracy (506)