The Atlas of Early Printing
A New Online Resource from the University of Iowa Library

The Atlas of Early Printing is an interactive site designed to be used as a tool for teaching the early history of printing in Europe during the second half of the fifteenth century. While printing in Asia pre-dates European activity by several hundred years, the rapid expansion of the trade following the discovery of printing in Mainz, Germany around the middle of the fifteenth century is a topic of great importance to the history of European civilization. This website uses Flash to depict the spread of European printing in a manner that allows a user to control dates and other variables.

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NEW BOOK
The Work of Print: Authorship and the English Text Trades, 1660--1760
(University of Washington Press, January 2008)
Lisa Maruca

"The Work of Print" traces a shift in the very definition of literature, from one that encompasses the material conditions of the production and distribution of books to the more familiar emphasis on the solitary author's ownership of an abstract text. Drawing on contemporary accounts of printers, booksellers, publishers, and distributors, the author examines attitudes about the creative process and approaches to the commodification of writing.

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