Abstract
This chapter documents the start of editorial style in early modern England through critically mapping the first printer’s manual published in English: Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, or The doctrine of handy-works applied to the art of printing (1683). Mechanick Exercises was not the first manual to be published, however: Hieronymus Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia (1608) claims this distinction. While Orthotypographia lies outsides this book’s scope, an effective critical mapping of editorial style in early modern England requires knowledge of the people or factors of influence from the past. Hence, Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia and its influence on Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises are also examined.
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Notes
- 1.
A version translated into German by Tobias Heidenrich was published in 1634, entitled Orthotypographia , das ist, ein kurtzer Vnterricht für diejenigen, die gedruckte Werck corrigiren woollen; see Simpson , p. 126.
- 2.
Note Hornschuch ’s criticism of printers: ‘[P]rinters themselves, some of whom would be altogether better employed spending their time in cobblers’ or barbers’ shops than in charge of this noble profession. They do everything solely for the sake of money, and whatever is given to them to be printed they send back ever worse, with types often so worn down and blunt that their feeble impression on almost crumbling, dirt-coloured paper can scarcely be detected by the keenest eye’; see p. 5.
- 3.
According to Rebecca Bullard (2014, 119), ‘Printed signatures first appeared in the 1470s (having migrated from the practice of scribes, who sometimes used them in manuscripts) and quickly became a ubiquitous feature of the new technology’.
- 4.
According to Bringhurst, ‘In cartography, [#] is a traditional symbol for village: eight fields around a central square. That is the source of its name. Octothorpe means eight fields’; this is cited by Houston (2013, 48). See also Robert Bringhurst , The Elements of Typographic Style, 2nd edn (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1999), pp. 77, 282.
- 5.
For example, the Latin text on the left-hand side of the page in Fig. 2.1 contains the catchword ‘Si’.
- 6.
The pressure placed on compositors by their master printers must be noted, as explained by Adrian Johns (1998, 93): ‘Working for up to fourteen hours a day, a pair of such workers might be expected to produce some twelve to fifteen hundred sheets in that time—that is, to make 250 impressions an hour’.
- 7.
Simpson (1935, 131) describes Hornschuch ’s analogous conclusion as ‘a well-aimed blow’.
- 8.
Interestingly, Handover (1960, 332) asserts that Davis and Carter ‘regard [Moxon ] as a sporadic amateur’, which starkly contrasts with Davis and Carter ’s (1962, lv) summation at their introduction’s end: ‘He was the first writer on printing, and though he had a dignified following, he was probably the best of all’.
- 9.
However, earlier in her article, Maruca slightly contradicts this by identifying Moxon as ‘a part-time printer, typefounder and writer, in addition to his regular work as a hydrographer and mathematical instrument maker’ (p. 323).
- 10.
Feather (1988, 40) describes Laud’s motivation for his policy well: ‘The whole thrust of crown policy in the 1630s, under the direction of Laud and [Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of] Strafford, was centralisation and control. Laud was concerned about the growing divisions in the Church of England and the opposition to his ecclesiastical policies. Fully aware of the power of the press, he sought to control it.’
- 11.
Printers exemplify this. Simpson (1935, 110) explains that, from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, printers either hired correctors or performed the corrections personally. Though Feather (1988, 39) indicates that the ‘early decades of the seventeenth century […] saw the beginning of the separation of the printing and publishing functions.’
- 12.
McKenzie (1969, 13) writes: ‘Where output varies so markedly from man to man and period to period, any reliance on “norms” would seem to imply an almost irresponsibly large burden of probable error’.
- 13.
Long (2013, 30) indicates that the only company of which Moxon was a member was the Livery of the Weavers’ Company; he was admitted on 8 August 1664.
- 14.
T. C. Hansard (1825, 246–9) reproduced the charter in Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin of the Art of Printing.
- 15.
Maruca neglects to identify these ‘secrets’, though presumably she alluded to the print trade.
- 16.
Maruca (2003, 325) does explain, however, how the English civil war impacted on the trade and its regulation: ‘In the case of the print trades […] factors were exacerbated by the loosening of restrictions on printing throughout the last thirty years or so of the seventeenth century’. See also Feather (1988, 43–9).
- 17.
See Diary of Robert Hooke 1672–1680 Transcribed from the Original in the Possession of the Corporation of the City of London (Guildhall Library), edited by H. W. Robinson and W. Adams (London: Taylor and Francis, 1935), p. 287.
- 18.
- 19.
Johns (1998, 81) does mention the negative vote, though neglects to explain the reason for it.
- 20.
See also Paul Emmons, ‘Architecture before art: imagining architectural authority in early modern England’, Architectural Research Quarterly, 10 (2006), 275.
- 21.
Hunter (1982, 25) confirms the Society’s reluctance to grant fellowship to tradesmen, as well as Moxon ’s late election: ‘what is more significant than his actual election is its lateness, considering that he had been associated with the Society earlier, and the fact that he received the unusual number of four negative votes when he stood for election’.
- 22.
The London Gazette archives yields no evidence to confirm whether Moxon paid for this advertising or not.
- 23.
‘GB 117 The Royal Society’ repository, reference number CMO/1/278, https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27Mr%20Chiswell%27%29, date accessed 21 February 2019.
- 24.
‘GB 117 The Royal Society’ repository, reference number CMO/2/3, https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27Mr%20Moxon%27%29, date accessed 21 February 2019.
- 25.
Dedicating Mechanick Exercises to John Fell appears justifiable as he was, according to Janssen (2000, 156), ‘“architect” of English seventeenth-century typography’.
- 26.
See also Howard-Hill (2006, 25).
- 27.
Note that R. B. McKerrow (1913, 264) observes that the ‘letters i and j, and u and v, not being differentiated in early times, are not separately used as signatures , i.e., there is one gathering signed either i or j and one signed u or v. The letter w is also generally omitted from signatures’ . See also Sayce (1966, 3).
- 28.
Such issues are practically considered in Hinman (1955).
- 29.
- 30.
See also Salmon (1988, 299).
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Hargrave, J. (2019). The Beginnings of Editorial Style in Seventeenth-Century England: Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises . In: The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_2
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