Reading History in Early Modern England

This book focuses on the after-life of historical texts in the period between the arrival of printing in England and the early eighteenth century. Whereas previous studies of historical writing during this period have focused on their authors and on their style or methodology, this work examines the history book from a number of other perspectives. The intent is to situate the study of history books within the current literature on the history of the book and the history of print culture. After discussing the process whereby the inheritance of the medieval chronicle was broken down into a variety of different historical genres during the sixteenth century, the author turns to the questions of how and why history books were read, who owned them, the borrowing and lending of them, their production and printing, and methods for marketing and distributing them.

• A study of history books in the early modern period, concentrating on reading and production rather than authors or content • The first book to situate the ‘history of history’ within a wider cultural context, especially in terms of printing and reading • Based on a vast number of sources relating to printers and their readers

Introduction; 1. The death of the chronicle; 2. The contexts and purposes of history reading; 3. The ownership of historical works; 4. Borrowing and lending; 5. Clio bound and unbound; 6. Marketing history; Conclusion; Appendix A: A bookseller’s inventory, c. 1730; Appendix B: History by auction: auction sale catalogues 1686–1700.

‘D. R. Woolf’s excellent new book … combining wide-ranging archival research with imaginative ingenuity.’ Kevin Sharpe, The Times Literary Supplement