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Strange Food, Paper

Early modern literary studies, 2018, Vol.20 (1), p.1-21 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

COPYRIGHT 2018 Matthew Steggle ;2018. This work is published under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;ISSN: 1201-2459 ;EISSN: 1201-2459

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  • Title:
    Strange Food, Paper
  • Author: Halasz, Alexandra
  • Subjects: Allusion ; Archives & records ; Cultural heritage ; Digital media ; Economic aspects ; English language ; Fate ; History ; Literary devices ; Logic ; Paper industry ; Poetry ; Portrayals ; Prototypes ; Publishing ; Publishing industry ; Pulp & paper mills ; Websites ; Writing
  • Is Part Of: Early modern literary studies, 2018, Vol.20 (1), p.1-21
  • Description: Rags were the circulating capital of a manufacture that also required fixed capital investment (mill and equipment), control over natural resources (a steady supply of clean water of sufficient flow) and skilled labour.13 As we've seen from the petitions prior to Spilman's grant, the rag trade also figures in arguments about the balance of trade and the importance of value-added products in domestic manufacture. V. In 1993 Thomas Calhoun and Thomas Gravell established that Spilman's paper was used in the 1605 quarto edition of Ben Jonson's Sejanus, a circumstance they felt required explanation given that the cost of English white paper was, they estimate, some forty percent higher than that of French paper (also used in some copies of the same edition).32 They speculate that the paper was chosen in the charged atmosphere immediately after the Gunpowder episode: 'What better way to assure the loyalty of poet, press and publisher that to "buy British" and print on paper that Spilman manufactured for the king's letterhead'?33 They conclude that 'Jonson arranged to use English paper with royal watermarks in order to give Sejanus (1605) the appearance of royal sanction - which, perhaps, it had'.34 To date, the 1605 Sejanus is the only printed book known to have used Spilman paper. Mark Bland' s desideratum is to ' begin by doing what is manageable' (tracking identifiable paper stocks in the archives) so that 'in the end, we will achieve what at present seems impossible: a comprehensive account of the trade in and use of paper in early seventeenth century England'.43 David Gants proposes to methodically capture the spaces between chainlines of sheets of paper in large quantities so as to prototype a database of paper - initially, the stocks used in books printed in London around 1616.44 Chain measurements, he argues, are 'simple data' and more easily machine readable than watermarks.45 He foresees an integrated database of chainspace measurements and watermarks that can be correlated with the analytic and descriptive information achieved by a long tradition of Anglo-American bibliography to map the book trade of early modern England. 5 For every region (in Western Europe) the documentary archive variously reveals the same framing issues: control over the rag supply; control over the natural resources of a good mill site; control over the skilled labour; and an owner, someone who could make significant capital investment and provide access to market.
  • Publisher: Sheffield: Matthew Steggle
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 1201-2459
    EISSN: 1201-2459
  • Source: Free E Journals
    Freely Accessible Arts & Humanities Journals
    ProQuest Central
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