PREFACE
In this volume, as in the preceding, an effort has been made to give the reader some idea of the actual conditions of the printing industry in Europe from the time of the invention down to the French Revolution. Attention has been devoted to the organization and conditions of the industry, the circumstances under which the work was done, and the actual life and work of the men who did it.
The method of treatment chosen has been topical rather than chronological. It has been thought that a series of pictures of different aspects of the industry would be of more value than the ordinary detailed study of periods, of schools, and of the actual work produced at various times which is rather suited to advanced students than to beginners. This method of treatment necessarily involves a certain amount of repetition, but probably less than would be required if an attempt were made to fit the same information into a chronological framework.
To an extent even greater than in the previous volume the writer has endeavored to reconstruct in part at least the general conditions of the time. The economic history of printing or, indeed, any history of printing is a part of the general history of the period. It so happens that the peculiar conditions of the printing industry had a very marked effect in the changes which took place in the industrial world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The attempt is made to show the working of these influences in the treatment of certain parts of the subject. The main purpose, however, throughout has been to give the young printer of today an idea of the work and life of the old printers, who were very human men, engaged, though under different conditions, in the same struggle to earn their bread and butter which occupies our attention today.