A beautiful website has been established for the 2005 meeting of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) in Halifax, Nova Scotia to take place July 14-17.

Papers on any aspect of book history and print culture may be proposed. The conference theme “Navigating Texts and Contexts” suggests that examination of the varieties of relationships between texts and contexts would be welcome. In addition, because Halifax is located at one point of what a Canadian historian described as “The North Atlantic Triangle” (Britain, France, and North America), papers on aspects of the book trade in that region would be appropriate.

Paper and session proposals, in either English or French, should be submitted by November 30, 2004. Proposals may be submitted online…

I wish some of you digital/textual studies folks in the blogosphere would start presenting your work at SHARP.

I don’t think most people realize what a radical thing the First Amendment to the American Constitution was when it was first proposed:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis mine)

I tend to read eighteenth-century American history through the lens of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. This quote from Paula McDowell’s “Women and the Business of Print” (Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800, ed by Viven Jones. Cambridge, 2000) might help you see why:

Over the period from 1695 o 1774, the English press underwent some of the most important changes in its history. Before 1695, the guild which oversaw the book trade, the Worshipful Company of Stationers of London, held a royal charter granting its membership sole right to print, publish, or traffic in the printed word. Printing was confined to London and the two university towns, there were strict limits on the number of printers, and texts had to be licensed before they could be printed. During the Civil War period, press controls temporarily collapsed; political upheaval and increased literacy rates had contributed to an unprecedented demand for the printed word. In 1662, the Printing or Licensing Act would revive the principles of government censorship, yet the press would never again be as effectively controlled as it had been prior to the 1640s. In 1695, the Licensing Act was allowed to lapse for good, ending pre-publication censorship and limits on the number of master printers. The situation after 1695 was not that of a ‘free press’; government and trade restrictions still limited what could be printed and by whom. Nonetheless, the early eighteenth century was a period of anarchic expansion in the print trades. Whereas before 1695 there were only twenty-four legal printers in all of England, by 1795 there were between sixty-five and seventy printing-houses in London alone. (137-138))

Imagine if you had to get permission from the government before you could publish anything (e.g. on your blog). The idea seems ridiculous now, but prior to 1695, that was the norm in the most powerful nation of the English speaking world. This was a kind of dumb phrase, given that England was pretty much the only English speaking nation in the world at this time.