Early modern herbals and the book trade : English stationers and the commodification of botany / Sarah Neville.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Neville, Sarah (Assistant professor of English), author.

Series:

Humanities

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Herbals--England--History and criticism.

Herbals.

Publishers and publishing--England--History.

Publishers and publishing.

Botany--England--History.

Botany.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 290 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Between 1525 and 1640, a remarkable phenomenon occurred in the world of print: England saw the production of more than two dozen editions identified by their imprints or by contemporaries as 'herbals'. Sarah Neville explains how this genre grew from a series of tiny anonymous octavos to authoritative folio tomes with thousands of woodcuts, and how these curious works quickly became valuable commodities within a competitive print marketplace. Designed to serve readers across the social spectrum, these rich material artifacts represented both a profitable investment for publishers and an opportunity for authors to establish their credibility as botanists. Highlighting the shifting contingencies and regulations surrounding herbals and English printing during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the book argues that the construction of scientific authority in Renaissance England was inextricably tied up with the circumstances governing print. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core at doi.org/10.1017/9781009031615.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Note on Transcription and Citation

List of Abbreviations

Prologue: Milton's Trees

Introduction: Authorizing English Botany

Part I A History of Herbals

Chapter 1 Authorship, Book History, and the Effects of Artifacts

Chapter 2 The Stationers' Company and Constraints on English Printing

Chapter 3 Salubrious Illustration and the Economics of English Herbals

Part II Anonymity in the Printed English Herbal

Chapter 4 Reframing Competition: The Curious Case of the Little Herball

Chapter 5 The Grete Herball and Evidence in the Margins

Chapter 6 "Unpublished Virtues of the Earth": Books of Healing on the English Renaissance Stage

Part III Authors and the Printed English Herbal

Chapter 7 William Turner and the Medical Book Trade

Chapter 8 John Norton and the Redemption of John Gerard

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Dec 2021).

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International CC BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode

ISBN:

9781009033046

1009033042

9781009033237

1009033239

9781009031615

1009031619

OCLC:

1260691416

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access