We were raised having new technology tossed at us from the first time we rolled out of our cribs. I grew up on video game consoles whose controllers and buttons evolved with every new generation. Is it really hard to believe that I could get used to holding yet another electronic device? It got me thinking.
Meanwhile, I woke this morning to see this article in the Boston Globe. It's an interview with Andrew Pettegree, a professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews, who's just published a book on the birth of print. (Not surprisingly, it's not yet for sale on the Kindle.) He describes the early book market as similarly confusing for readers and publishers alike, as both struggled to decide what to do with Gutenberg's new technology. The public has no use or interest in mass-market texts, since they were used to copied-on-demand manuscript editions.
Think about it: as lovely as the Gutenberg Bible looks, can it compare to the Book of Kells? It's a transition we don't think about much, but I'll bet it made few Renaissance readers uncomfortable.
Of course, not every book is a Gutenberg Bible. My favorite part of the article describes what was actually printed on most of the new presses:
These are the sort of books they want to produce, tiny books. Very often they’re not even trying to sell them retail. They’re a commissioned book for a particular customer, who might be the town council or a local church, and they get paid for the whole edition. And those are the people who tended to stay in business in the first age of print.
What do you know! Custom publishing! And all this time, I thought we were being innovative . . .
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