Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-05-15T08:33:58.625Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

39 - The Stationers’ Company and the almanack trade

from III - SPECIALIST BOOKS AND MARKETS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

Michael F. Suarez, SJ
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Michael L. Turner
Affiliation:
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Get access

Summary

‘An Almanack-Maker’, wrote Richard Brathwaite, ‘is an annual author, no lesse constant in his method than matter.’ Designed as items to be replaced yearly, almanacks sold in huge numbers. Indeed, they had a nearly universal appeal, for while some almanacks had partisan political or religious affiliations, the vast majority did not. Moreover, since they were cheap to produce, it was possible to price them to suit almost everyone’s purse. The better almanacks, in effect yearbooks, provided useful information for professional men, merchants and the gentry, while the poorer classes and semi-literate could enjoy the crude woodcuts and learn the jingles.

The English Stock and its government

The original letters patent setting up the English Stock in 1603 granted the Stationers’ Company perpetual copyright in ‘all manner of Almanacks and Prognostications in the English tongue’ which it ‘shall and may at all times and from time to time for ever print or cause to be printed’ (my italics). This, the Company believed, established its exclusive right to print and publish almanacks in perpetuity.

The English Stock was funded by shareholding members of the Stationers’ Company and run by a stock board. Appointed by the Stationers’ Court, the stock board met fortnightly or monthly and consisted of the Master and Wardens, a paid Treasurer or Warehouse Keeper, the Clerk in attendance, and six Stock Keepers (two for each class of share: Court assistant, Livery and Yeomanry). While the Stock held a monopoly on a number of works, it was almanack sales that ensured its continuing prosperity. As Blagden notes, sales of almanacks allowed the Stock to earn the equivalent of its capital in just eight years, helping to maintain the numbers of those joining the Livery in the eighteenth century when the Liveries of other Companies were in decline.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blagden, C. 1955The English Stock of the Stationers’ Company: an account of its origins,’ Library, 5th ser., 10.Google Scholar
Blagden, C. 1957The English Stock of the Stationers’ Company in the time of the Stuarts’, Library, 5th ser., 12.Google Scholar
Blagden, C. 1958The distribution of almanacks in the second half of the seventeenth century’, Studies in Bibliography 11.Google Scholar
Blagden, C. 1960a The Stationers’ Company: a history, 1403–1959, London.
Blagden, C. 1960b ‘Thomas Carnan and the almanack monopoly’, Studies in Bibliography, 14.Google Scholar
Bowden, R. 2001The English Stock and the Stationers’ Company: the final years’, in Myers 2001.Google Scholar
Brathwaite, R. 1631 Whimzies: or a new cast of characters, London.
Capp, B. S. 1979 English almanacs: astrology and the popular press, 1500–1800, London.
Harris, M. 1980Astrology, almanacks and booksellers, a review article’, Publishing History, 8.Google Scholar
Treadwell, M. 2003The Stationers and the Printing Acts at the end of the seventeenth century’, in II Morgan, N. and Thomson, R.M. (eds.) The Cambridge history of the book in Britain, vol. II: 1100–1400, Cambridge, 2008, IV.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×