Book

"This volume explores the challenges and possibilities of research into the European dimensions of popular print culture. Popular print culture has traditionally been studied with a national focus. Recent research has revealed, however, that popular print culture has many European dimensions and shared features. A group of specialists in the field has started to explore the possibilities and challenges of research on a wide, European scale. This volume contains the first overview and analysis of the different approaches, methodologies and sources that will stimulate and facilitate future comparative research. This volume first addresses the benefits of a media-driven approach, focusing on processes of content recycling, interactions between text and image, processes of production and consumption. A second perspective illuminates the distribution and markets for popular print, discussing audiences, prices and collections. A third dimension refers to the transnational dimensions of genres, stories, and narratives. A last perspective unravels the communicative strategies and dynamics behind European bestsellers. This book is a source of inspiration for everyone who is interested in research into transnational cultural exchange and in the fascinating history of popular print culture in Europe."

Contents

Contents

Massimo Rospocher and Jeroen Salman
Introduction: Crossing Borders, Crossing Cultures

I. Media, Intermediality

Daniel Bellingradt
The Dynamic of Communication and Media Recycling in Early Modern Europe: Popular Prints as Echoes and Feedback Loops

Rebecca Carnevali
Iconographies and Material Culture of Illustrated Cheap Print from Post-Tridentine Bologna

Andreas Würgler
“Popular Print in German” (1400-1800). Problems and Projects

II. Markets, Prices, and Collections

Francesca Tancini
The Railway Library and Other Literary Rubbish that Travels by the Rail

Goran Proot
Shifting Price Levels of Books Produced at the Officina Plantiniana in Antwerp, 1580–1655

Flavia Bruni
Faraway, So Close: Frontier Challenges for Inter-National Bibliographies

III. Transnational Approaches

Jean-François Botrel and Juan Gomis
“Literatura de cordel” from a Transnational Perspective. New Horizons for an Old Field of Study

Alice Colombo
The Translational Dimension of Street Literature. The Nineteenth-Century Italian Repertoire

VI. Contents

Jordi Sánchez-Martí
The Printed Popularization of the Iberian Books of Chivalry across Sixteenth- Century Europe

Julia Martins
The Afterlife of Italian Secrets: Translating Medical Recipes in Early Modern Europe

Niall Ó Ciosáin
Popular Print in Unofficial Languages. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany

IV. Genres and European Bestsellers

Claudia Demattè
The Spanish Romances about Chivalry. A Renaissance Editorial Phenomenon on Which “The Sun Never Set”

Elisa Marazzi
Crossing Genres: A Newcomer in the Transnational History of Almanacs

Reinhart Siegert
The Greatest German Book Success of the Eighteenth Century. Rudolph Zacharias Becker’s “Noth- und Hülfsbüchlein” (1788/1798) as the Prototype of Printed Volksaufklärung and its Dissemination in Europe

Rita Schlusemann
A Canon of Popular Narratives in Six European Languages between 1470 and 1900. The “Griseldis”-Tradition in German and Dutch

Contributors

Index

Keywords

• Genres and Media in Cultural Studies
• Early Modern and Modern History
• Cultural History

Reviews

 - "Nachdem die europäische Buchgeschichte bislang stark von nationalen Forschungstraditionen geprägt war, setzt sich der vorliegende Band das löbliche Ziel, komparative und transnational ausgerichtete Forschungen zu erleichtern und zu stimulieren. [...] Das Buch und die zahlreichen darin enthaltenen Abbildungen sind ansprechend gestaltet. Es wird deutlich, dass die neuzeitlichen Buchmärkte zwar stark national geprägt waren, aber vielfältige Verflechtungen bestanden, die nicht als losgelöst von generellen soziokulturellen Entwicklungen zu betrachten sind. [...] Es sind ihm eine große Leserschaft und zahlreiche daran anknüpfende Forschungen zu wünschen, damit die transnationale Dimension des europäischen Druckwesens mehr Beachtung findet."  – Doris Gruber, in "Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung", 48, 2021, 1, S. 133 f.