Upon being introduced to Kirk Melnikoff's Elizabethan Publishing and the Makings of Literary Culture, one is immediately taken with the presentation of the book itself: both dust jacket and title are attractively displayed, the typeface positioned clearly on pages of agreeable weight, the binding firm yet flexible within the hand. Such an aesthetically pleasing book not only attests to its performance as a publication (albeit a modern one), but also speaks to the early modern practices it embodies and explores—the literary, cultural, and artistic significance of bookselling publishers, men and women of the middling sort whose endeavors, especially during the latter half of the Elizabethan period, fostered the emergence of a native literary culture and contributed to an evolving national consciousness. Melnikoff offers an impressively detailed consideration of book-trade publishing in England after incorporation of the Stationers’ Company in 1557, when publishers became the dominant force responsible for the production, circulation, and reissuing of printed material. Elizabethan literary culture, Melnikoff insists, cannot be duly appreciated without an understanding of the norms, habits, and idiosyncrasies of the bookselling publisher.
Melnikoff requires readers to have some familiarity with publishing practices in sixteenth-century London: those who may not be well acquainted with the ins and outs of the book trade during this period may at first be challenged by this rigorous study. Especially helpful, however, are Melnikoff's introduction and first chapter, which prepare readers for in-depth discussions of the careers, collaborations, and specializations of particular publishers, such as Thomas Hacket, Richard Smith, Nicholas Ling, and the partnership between John Flasket and Paul Linley. There is a wealth of material here that shifts discussion from canonical authors such as Shakespeare or Marlowe to accentuate the labors, risks, and interventions of bookselling publishers. Although there was no single term for a person involved in the financing, production, and distribution of texts, Melnikoff carefully distinguishes between the “printer publisher” and “bookseller publisher” (6) to highlight the transition from craft to commerce. Whether in collaboration with printers, other publishers, translators, collectors, or authors, London's booksellers were “the book market's front line” (16), advertisers of their own wares. In addition to multivolume works or specialization in vernacular genres, publishers incorporated paratextual materials to distinguish their editions—designing title pages, adding prefaces, dedicatory epistles, commendatory verse, woodcut illustrations, and later including tables of content, indexes, and errata, as essential marketing tools.
Notably, Melnikoff takes time to acknowledge scholars from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (e.g., Edward Arber, A. W. Pollard, W. W. Greg, and R. B. McKerrow), while identifying with more recent studies, such as by Peter Blayney and Zachery Lesser, which address the motives and conditions, the whys and the wheres, that propelled publishing activities and the many sustained relationships that enabled the Elizabethan book trade. While earlier scholars addressed the malfeasance of booksellers (piracy for profit), Melnikoff considers stationers as law-abiding, creative agents, everlasting readers who had their finger on the living pulse of society. Rather than focusing on plays, as do Blayney and Lesser, Melnikoff examines the publication of “travel narratives, lyric poetry, literary anthologies, and erotic verse” (12), including the rise of vernacular genres, to confirm that publishers such as Thomas Hacket, Richard Smith, et al., made significant contributions to evolving literary forms. Although profit was a motivating force, many stationers participated in larger ideological or moral imperatives. John Day, for example, used earnings from printing inexpensive titles to support projects like Foxe's Actes and Monuments. Nicholas Ling, who brought forth both editions of Hamlet Q1 and Q2, promoted themes of political virtue, especially in Q1 through the words of Corambis/Polonius, whose advice, set off by editing commas, reveals republican leanings.
To conclude, Melnikoff's book is intelligent and impressively researched. While the study may initially appear dense to those unfamiliar with the field, it is well worth reading. One of its many contributions helps us affectively see the bustling activities and productions of early modern booksellers, whose critical responses as invested readers represent the earliest reception of England's literary culture in its commercial and historical moment. Melnikoff teaches readers about early modern book production and culture: personally, I learned a great deal.
