The Mighty Engine: The Printing Press & Its Impact (review)

The Mighty Engine: The Printing Press & Its Impact. Edited by Peter Isaac and Barry McKay. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000. xi, 205 pp. $39.95. ISBN 1-58456-024-X.

These proceedings of the Seventeenth Seminar on the British Book Trade mark the fourth volume in the Print Networks Series of biblioscholarship. Held in Aberystwyth, the 1999 conference addressed changes and innovations in the provincial book trade brought about by the printing press, nicknamed the "Mighty Engine" because of its impact in passing the Reform Act of 1832. As with the other titles in this series, contributors include antiquarian booksellers, academic librarians, researchers, and university tutors. Their dense articles, based on records from private collections plus manuscripts and registers from national and regional libraries, range from narrow case studies of a particular person, town, or year to broader historical and geographical considerations of print distribution.

The opening essays concern the role of print in preserving and promoting Welsh language and culture: Rheinallt Llwyd investigates the Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru (1773), the beautifully typeset anthology and standard text of medieval Welsh verse, while Audrey Cooper salutes George Nicholson and his pocket-sized Cambrian Travellers' Guide (1808) to Wales and the Marches. Other articles about Wales find counterparts in the rest of the collection, which treats the provincial book trade in Scotland and England. Because these essays are not presented in any chronological or thematic order, however, the reader must work to decipher the expansion of print culture in relation to social and economic climates. What follows is a reorganization of the topics presented.

Seminar fellow Stacey Gee examines the transition from manuscript to print culture in York and details the menace that the new printing press technology posed to scribes, textwriters, and their guilds. Richard Suggett, speaking of early modern Wales, notes a shift from urban English texts to rural Welsh-language books and analyzes their distribution by chapmen, hawkers, and peddlers. This subclass is also examined by Maureen Bell, who explains how antipeddler laws during the Restoration controlled both competition with local markets and circulation of seditious pamphlets at English fairs and coffeehouses. John Hinks also explores censorship and reminds us that nineteenth-century printers of radical texts from the American and French Revolutions (such as Common Sense and The Rights of Man) were often jailed, thus sacrificing their personal liberty. Finally, newspapers also reflected political agendas, and Diana Dixon underscores the regional and national impact of the provincial press in general and of Huntingdonshire's Whig and Tory papers in particular.

The remaining essays deal with various aspects of print distribution. The development of bookselling dynasties, such as the Potter family of Haverfordwest or the Mozleys of Gainsborough, is described by Chris Baggs and Jim English. David Stoker examines the rise of the Red-Well press in Norwich, and David Shaw studies eighteenth-century Canterbury and its alliances between regional and national booksellers. Scottish publishers also sought a wider British market, and their use of advertising during the 1830s is presented by Iain Beavan. Edinburgh eventually became the cultural center of Britain, according to Brenda Scragg, who credits its rise to booksellers like William Ford. Other booksellers are also scrutinized. William Flackton, also a celebrated musician from Canterbury, is the subject of Sarah Gray; John Mountfort and his ca. 1700 Worcester records are plumbed by Margaret Cooper; and Barry McKay reports on John Ware's Cumberland daybooks from 1799 to 1800. Rounding out the collection is a caveat by John Turner concerning quantitative bibliography and (incomplete) on-line catalogs whose inclusion of data is at a cataloger's whim.

Weak organization of fascinating research aside, this volume contains useful bibliographies, detailed tables of book trade data, interesting plates ranging from advertisements to front pages, and a wonderfully detailed index. The Mighty Engine, in short, is a valuable addition to the Print Networks Series of any library collection.