There are two misleading terms associated with this collection that do not do it justice. The first is the unfortunately vague gerund of the title; the second is the unassuming title given to the epilogue (for which, see below). The former is the preoccupation of the editor, who uses the nebulous concept of negotiation as an all-encompassing theoretical frame for the collection. It is an abstruse choice that obscures both the subject and the value of this book, a sign that it could have benefited from a firmer and more balanced editorial hand.
The essays here all focus in various ways on King James I of England and his relationship with and exploitation of the book trade, as he and his administration attempted to fashion and enforce recognized forms of authority within print culture. The collection, based on the proceedings of a conference held in 2007, is dedicated to the late Graham Rees, director of the King's Printer Project and co-author, with Maria Wakely, of the important and well-received study Publishing, Politics, and Culture: The King's Printers in the Reign of James I and VI (2009) — a book that, oddly, is not cited here in either the notes or bibliography. Rees's contribution, fittingly the first in the volume, provides a valuable introduction to early modern Bible production, both before and after the publication of the Authorized Version in 1611. Rees attends to variations in format and price, as well as to the monopoly over Bibles held by the King's Printers, which Rees memorably characterizes as a “licence to print money” (28). Two other essays concentrate on complementary aspects of religious publication. Natalie Mears examines the overlooked print genre of special prayers (usually acts of thanksgiving or pleas for divine intervention), which often strained the limited resources of parishes. Sharon Arnoult explains the increased status of the Book of Common Prayer under James as the logical result of a generation raised on and familiar with the pervasive book. This generation in turn sought not only to perform but to actively produce the proper religious sensibilities of the laity. David R. Lawrence adds a study of the authorized military drill manual produced by the King's Printer at the outset of the Thirty Years’ War.
Building on her widely known work on early modern censorship, Cyndia Susan Clegg contributes a characteristically sharp essay that overturns the conventional wisdom concerning Parliament's relationship with print. Studies usually focus on the Civil War period, but Clegg argues convincingly that the explosion of printed material in the 1640s had its roots in routine political practices in the Jacobean era, such as pamphlet controversies, printed petitions, and books of political counsel. Attending to these practices should change the way scholars conceive of the nature of parliament and royal authority, as well as the role of the book trade in fostering a nascent public sphere. The remaining essays consider the practical and conceptual implications of differences in material and rhetorical forms. Andreas Pečar describes the censorship of George Hakewill's political criticism of the Spanish Match, criticism that was accepted when it took the form of a biblically oriented justification of his position. Pete Langman explicates some of the differences between Francis Bacon's printed dedication of the Instauratio Magna to King James, and the manuscript letter that accompanied the presentation copy. Jane Rickard, in a case study of Pseudo-Martyr, reveals the differing attitudes of King James and John Donne to print and manuscript: the former sought to produce reverence and authority through print, while the latter seemed to prefer the more personal transactions of manuscript circulation.
The second deceptive name in this collection is the modestly titled “An Epilogue” by one “R. M acGeddon,” whom book historians may recognize as one of the personae maintained by the bibliographer Randall McLeod. This “Epilogue” has no thematic relation to the rest of the volume, beyond a methodological affinity for attending to the materiality of texts, and instead offers an extensive and meticulous study of the secrets that the pages of early modern books reveal to us, upon a closer inspection than most are willing (or able) to perform. Written in McLeod's characteristically (if often frustratingly) playful style — the key phrase here is the “deformation of information” (141) — this tour de force offers a series of case studies of nearly invisible marks on the page: uninked bearer type that leaves identifiable impressions, and the rotating patterns of welts left by the beating of hammers used to flatten printed sheets for binding. Taken together, McLeod's illustrations — pages photographed under a raking light — along with his ingenious analysis reveals hitherto hidden evidence for the production methods of early modern books. It will make enjoyably necessary reading for textual scholars.
