The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, vol. III: Ambition and Industry, 1800-1880 (review)

Together with another on the twentieth century, this is one of the first two volumes to appear of the Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland. Plans are in hand for two further volumes, to cover the periods from the earliest times to 1707, and from 1707 to 1800. As a project, it is both independent of the series for Ireland, for Wales, and for Britain as a whole, and is also complementary to them. The geographical, commercial, and human relationships between these various areas of responsibility mean that in these four projects Britain and Ireland will eventually be covered in more depth than can be envisaged for any other part of the world. But the relationship is a loose one, and each series has its own characteristics of approach, method, and emphasis. The present volume will be read alongside the volumes in the Cambridge History of the Book in Britain covering the period 1695 to 1914, a span that differs from the dates for the Scottish series, breaking at 1830 and 1914.

This volume is much more than an accompaniment to the ostensibly more general series. As the mesh of book history is gradually woven with the several programmes just mentioned, and (especially in this case) also those for the United States, Canada, and Australia, so we can better discover the nature of what we mean by terms that trip sometimes too readily off the tongue, such as 'international' or 'global'. Meanwhile, the Scottish focus of this volume not only provides a very necessary counter to more southern, mostly London-based, viewpoints, it also affords the space to deal properly with a phenomenon that affected the book trade not just of Britain but of the world. In a series very much to be welcomed as a whole, this volume is a rich one.

It has long been recognized that the contribution of printers, publishers, paper-makers, and typefounders in Scotland to the British book trade was quite disproportionate to the size of Scotland's own population. For printing (where costs were generally lower than in London) one need think only of Constable, MacLehose, or R. & R. Clark. For publishers there are Blackwood, Nelson, Blackie, Collins, and many others. And these are but the largest. The typefounding firms of Wilson in the eighteenth century and Miller & Richard in the nineteenth and twentieth gave to British printing much of its distinctive appearance. At the end of the nineteenth century, and therefore at the close of this volume, the publishing firms of Blackwood and Blackie were both in the top ten trade producers in Britain in terms of titles, and the field was far outdistanced by another Scottish foundation, now in London: Macmillan produced more than half as many books again as its nearest competitor.

This volume of the Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland explains something of the background and nature of this phenomenon, in a country where proportionately far more people were involved in the book industries than in England. Much of this was the result of a narrower production base in Scotland for industries generally. But Scottish productivity had a direct effect on the nature of the book industries and on the consumption of print throughout the nineteenth-century English-speaking world. With the Scottish diaspora, the effect was enhanced further, and perhaps especially in Canada. In his editorial introduction to the volume, Bill Bell places four issues firmly at the top of the agenda: a technological revolution, the reach of print, 'a half-educated nation?' and 'spoils of empire'. The third quotes an attack on Scottish schools in 1834 by George Lewis, who claimed that only one in twelve Scottish schoolchildren was enrolled in a day school, a statistic that calls into question the tradition that would prefer to believe in the myth of Scottish literacy. Overlying all these issues...