Occasional publishers: producing and marketing books in England 1771–1844

Purpose – To investigate the way in which a series of related printing businesses, owned by members of the Gye and Balne families in Bath and London from 1771 to 1844, selected and marketed their titles when they ventured into book printing and publishing. Design/methodology/approach – The basis of this research is extensive archival research analyzing primary sources, mainly the books and ephemera printed by the various firms, supported by information in contemporary newspapers and journals and in biographies of printers and publishers. Findings – The focus of these businesses was not solely on production but that marketing was also considered, and that there was each title was conceived and produced with a particular market in mind. In doing so it provides evidence of relatively advanced marketing strategies in use before 1850 and thus questions the validity of the four-eras model of marketing history. Research limitations/implications – The available primary sources are limited; while a number of books and other printed items have survived there are no extant accounts, correspondence, or other records for any of the firms that were studied. Originality/value – There has been very little research into the way small businesses during this period approached the marketing of their products. This paper is a potential model for further such historical research and also provides an example of how research into specific companies can illuminate the larger history of marketing, potentially changing the way in which we understand the development of consumer society.

WCCC 2013: the 20th World Computer Chess Championship

The 20th World Computer Chess Championship took place in Yokohama, Japan during August 2013. It was narrowly won by JUNIOR from JONNY with HIARCS, PANDIX, SHREDDER and MERLIN occupying the remaining positions. There are references to the detailed chess biographies of the engines and engine-authors in the Chessprogramming Wiki. The games, occasionally annotated, are available here.

Life before ‘The New Biography’: Modernist biographical methods in the Hogarth Press ‘Books on Tolstoi’ 1920-24

In the early 1920s, before Virginia Woolf wrote her now well-known essays “The New Biography” and “The Art of Biography,” the Hogarth Press published four biographies of Tolstoy. Each of these English translations of Russian works takes a different approach to biographical composition, and as a group they offer multiple and contradictory perspectives on Tolstoy’s character and on the genre of biography in the early twentieth century. These works show that Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press took a multi-perspectival, modernist approach to publishing literary lives.

“Very sore nights and days”: the child’s experience of illness in early modern England, c. 1580-1720

Sick children were ubiquitous in early modern England, and yet they have received very little attention from historians. Taking the elusive perspective of the child, this article explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual experience of illness in England between approximately 1580 and 1720. What was it like being ill and suffering pain? How did the young respond emotionally to the anticipation of death? It is argued that children’s experiences were characterised by profound ambivalence: illness could be terrifying and distressing, but also a source of emotional and spiritual fulfilment and joy. This interpretation challenges the common assumption amongst medical historians that the experiences of early modern patients were utterly miserable. It also sheds light on children’s emotional feelings for their parents, a subject often overlooked in the historiography of childhood. The primary sources used in this article include diaries, autobiographies, letters, the biographies of pious children, printed possession cases, doctors’ casebooks, and theological treatises concerning the afterlife.

Contribution to The World Goes Pop exhibition catalogue

Biographies for artists Barel, Joav (p.174), Brudascu, Cornel (p.177), Bucan, Boris (p.178), Chicago, Judy (p.182), Ivekovic, Sanja (p.197), Komar and Melamid (p.200), Lach-Lachowicz, Natalia (p.203), Otasevic, Dusan (p.212), Overstreet, Joe (p.214), Pininska - Beres, Maria (p.215), Rosler, Martha (p.222), Schifano, Mario (p.223), Self, Colin (p.224), Tajiri, Thinkichi (p.228), Tanaami, Keiichi (p.229), Tilson, Joe (p.231), Vardea, Chryssa (p.233), Yokoo, Tadanori (p.234), Zelibska, Jana (p.235) and Zielinski, Jerzy (p.236).