Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 17

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Berry Dongelmans
Copy and print revisited
(Translation: Jennifer Barnett)

From the moment of the publishing of Herman de la Fontaine Verwey's (1903-1989) essays in Copy and print in the Netherlands, in 1962, a new wind began to blow through the Netherlands book-studying world. The seed of a cultural-historical embedding of the book, which until then was mainly seen by libraries and antiquarian booksellers as an object to be described, had taken root. Whether De la Fontaine Verwey had brought the seed from France to the Netherlands with him remains in question, but since the thirties an ‘Annales’ breeze had arisen that increasingly strengthened over the following decades. This school of thought, which in its periodical, Annales, stood for a more comprehensive historiography instead of one based on ‘events’, resulted in a substantial number of socio-economic publications, and for book history, L'apparition du livre by Lucien Febvre and Henri Jean Martin in 1956. As a lover of France and French books, De la Fontaine Verwey must have come in contact with this new body of thought at an early stage. In any case, the ideas of the Annales group strongly resonate in the purpose of his writings in which he sees the book business as part of the socio-economic process. Naturally, as a bibliophile, he also considered the form of the book. In addition, the broader cultural-historical approach that he had already exhibited in a number of articles, returned in Copy and print. It was a triple stroke in book studies (business, form and culture) that had previously, and certainly not simultaneously, never been so intensely put to the test. Vijf eeuwen boek in Nederland [Five centuries of the book in the Netherlands], (1940), was in 1962 the most ‘recent’ overview but with six writers and as many odd articles, it was an entirely different kettle of fish.

Proximus Professor G. Ovink (1912-1984) (he and De la Fontaine Verwey were special professors affiliated with the Dr. P.A. Tiele Foundation at the University of Amsterdam) also took on the more technical route taken by the book in the twentieth century. With his description of this ‘technical genesis of the book’, placed before a number of dissertations by W.Gs. Hellinga (1908-1985) in which he displayed all his erudition on the analytic bibliographic principles and the outlines of text editing, this publication constituted (even then, but now certainly) a milestone in the study of ‘copy and print’ in the Netherlands. Beautifully designed by Alexander Verberne and partly due to the supplementary print collection, the book is still a feast for the eyes, as is the English edition. The digitised version of the Digital Library for Dutch Literature (www.dbnl.org) is comparatively meagre, despite the fact that the Dutch text is now generally available.

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Classic

This classic inspired the Yearbook editors to invite some authors to compare the state of book scholarship in 1962 with that of 2010 using De La Fontaine Verwey's essays and Ovink's contribution as a starting point. Indeed, much has happened in the study of the book since 1962. The Book History Online database brings up over 3,700 hits on ‘The Netherlands’ and ‘all years’. The Systematic Code 2.6.0.2.3.4 (- bibliology - auxiliary sciences - literature) in the Bibliography of Dutch language and literature provides over 1,500 publications from the reference year 1962 to the present.

In their letter of invitation to the intended authors, the editors wrote that they ‘would like to bring together the harvest of more than forty years of comprehensive historical book research into seven articles, for which that of De la Fontaine Verwey and Ovink from Copy and print in the Netherlands would serve as an example. After more than forty years, a revision is necessary. The chief requirement is to modernise and adapt the essays to the current state of knowledge in the light of achieved results and developments in book studies in the Netherlands and abroad’. It was initially attempted to entice both a Northern and Southern Netherlands author as a pair to chart the history of above and below the Moerdijk [Moer Dyke] per century; however, due to various reasons this wish could not be fulfilled.

The request has resulted in seven, new, updated essays, which once again present the history of the book in the Netherlands (and sometimes the ‘Low Countries’) in chronological order starting with the manuscript period and ending in the twenty first century. For while the book history in the South and North is closely interwoven also after 1585, from the seventeenth century onwards, the contributions focus almost exclusively on the situation in the North.

The changes in book study research ‘in the Low Countries’ that have been carried out since 1962 have been added in their own manner by the various pairs, depending on their century of study. Therefore, there is no longer a continuous uniformity in the structure of the documents but there is unicity in the execution. Each ‘chapter’ can therefore be read as a separate case study.

An annotated bibliography was also requested for each century with which the editors did not wish to intervene in any duplications, because each bibliography forms an integral part of the century to which it belongs.

Theory development

In their contributions, most authors have not gone into detail on the various theories and new approaches within book studies, even though these have nevertheless influenced the entire professional practice.

As well as in-depth studies of various areas, a number of theorists have significantly influenced book studies in all its facets. Pivotal studies by, among others, Henri Jean Martin, Robert Darnton, Donald F. McKenzie, Pierre Bourdieu, Roger Chartier, Gérard Genette and Reinhard Wittmann, have inspired many book historians. And many Dutch book historians, after their own research, for example on a genre, a city's book culture, a publisher, a reading group, a particular book, a form of book or an inventory, have first hand experience of the accompanying pitfalls and predicaments. All the introductions to these studies reflect upon the fundamentals of book studies research to some degree. In addition, new approaches such as reception esthetics, reader-response criticism, the relationship between form and audience and the sociology of the book have considerably enriched book studies as carried out up until 1962.

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It is undeniably true that such studies as The printing press as an agent of change (1979) by Elizabeth Eisenstein and the article ‘What is the history of books?’ (1983), in which Robert Darnton first presented his book history inspired communication scene (in the meantime ‘revisited’ by him) has stimulated much discussion in our country.

In addition, points of view regarding the book as one medium among other media have appeared increasingly and more emphatically before the footlights. The New Zealand book historian, Don McKenzie, showed in a renowned lecture series, Bibliography and the sociology of texts (1985), that the outward appearance and the content of a text, whether it be a Shakespearean drama, the Bible or a novel, cannot be regarded in isolation from each other. There is a constant interplay between form and content, not only during production but also in its reception. The reader is influenced consciously and unconsciously by the form in which text is presented while they are taking in the content. The medium that conveys the message determines to some extent how that message is sent and received. Each medium has its own limitations and possibilities in this respect. The transmission of a message sent by way of a newspaper notice, a sheet of A4 on a bulletin board or a four-colour poster on an advertising column has each its own form. Depending on the form, the reader not only attaches to it a particular meaning but also interprets the message in a certain way. The message and its interpretation is also coloured by the context of other media such as film, television, radio and photography and the information reaching the recipient from that channel.

You could say that McKenzie builds on the familiar adage ‘The medium is the message’. In the sixties of the last century, this was a much-cited quote from the Canadian media scholar, Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). The main idea is that the particular technology and medium through which the content is presented determines the actual perception of the message. This brings us directly to the distinction between the written book and the printed book. Although codicology and ‘book’ studies are less and less seen as separate worlds (a major gain in thinking about the ‘book’ since 1962 and supported by the fact that the manuscript period has also taken a place in this volume), they each have their own methods and techniques of research. That individuality appears to be due mainly to the specific nature of the text medium. The scroll, the codex and the manuscript permit all kinds of usages while for printing and vdu (Video Display Unit, the formal name for the display screen/monitor) there has been a gradual development of uniformity. In addition, the material itself (parchment verses paper verses screen) presents its own limitations or opportunities. There is, in short, a difference between whether you send a message by an e-mail or send the same message to the addressee by means of a hand written letter delivered by the post.

The theories of the French literary historian, Gérard Genette, set down in his book Seuils (1987) (an English translation appeared ten years later under the title, Paratexts. Thresholds of interpretation (1997)) is in keeping with this idea. For him, ‘paratext’ means all phenomena that contribute to the way in which texts are received by the reader cum buyer. In addition, he distinguishes between the ‘peritext’ (aspects of the book as physical object that can be directly ascertained such as the title, format, (dust) cover, paper, preliminary pages, price, author's name, publisher's name or the name of the series) and the phenomena at play around the book (epitext). We should also include all forms of advertising such as leaflets, brochures, newspaper advertisements, reviews, author interviews in various periodicals, Book Week promotions, radio and television appearances, lectures or readings from own works. We can relate the paratext most directly to the buyer who determines his choice based on the variety of signals emitting from what the bookstore offers: everybody is talking about it, read the review, its appearance, the promotional text on the back (blurb) or the wrapper with the text, ‘50,000 copies sold!’ Furthermore, diachronically, the paratext of a book or a genre is ever changing and strongly dependent on the time in which it was created and functioned.

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Thus, the appearance of a genre changes over time: a novel in the eighteenth century appears very different from one in our time. Moreover, the possibilities for advertising differ from period to period. The promotional text on the back of a book, the jacket, pricing, paper sort (rag paper, wood paper, parchment), the nature of the titles; all are facets that we examine with a text and which exhibit development and change in an historical perspective.

Besides increased attention for the relationship between form and audience and for the place of the book among other methods of text transmission, the formulation of theory concerning the reader (an ‘actor’ for whom there is scarce attention in the De la Fontaine Verwey and Ovink essays) has received increased and more compelling attention in recent decades. While book consumption had been examined abroad much earlier, in our country it was not until the eighties of the last century that the spotlight was directed onto the buyers, the readers and their use of books. It was the literature historians and cultural historians in particular who ‘began to realise the fact that a body of thought in print could neither exist without readers to appropriate it nor without the infrastructure to enable readers to do so’. Among the pioneers were Piet Buijnsters, Bert van Selm and Joost Kloek who respectively wrote about the rise of reading groups in the eighteenth century, private book ownership in the Republic and the novel reading public in the second half of the eighteenth century. However, it was especially after Kloek's work together with Wijnand Mijnhardt that reader-response criticism received a strong impulse. They began an extensive investigation based on the purchases recorded in the extant business archive of the Middelburg bookseller Salomon van Benthem (1769-1843), which was begun in 1801. Large and smaller studies on the reading culture in Zwolle, Den Haag, Groningen and Middelburg, to name but a few, have since been completed. It is gratifying to note that in the recently published volumes of the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur [History of Dutch literature], subjects such as publishing, book distribution, reading culture and book promotion receive prominent attention.

The broad approach to the book in its cultural-historical context advocated by De la Fontaine Verwey, theoretically has been given a specific meaning from abroad with the so-called ‘field theory’ of Pierre Bourdieu. One of Bourdieu's merits was to make clear the awareness that art is not only the exclusive product of cultural-ideological factors, but also equally that of economic and psychological forces. An artwork, and therefore a literary work, is not an autonomous object but is also ‘made’ by external factors, whereby literary institutions (authors, publishers, libraries, bookshops and book clubs, critics, periodicals, education, committees, juries) try to influence opinions about literature. Together these institutions form a constantly changing system of power relationships. Through the emphasis on the role of literary institutions by Bourdieu, institutional sociology literature is also discussed. In addition, precisely because these institutions also belong to the preserve of book studies, Bourdieu's ideas have since influenced the formulation of theory on the practice of book studies here as well. Thus, for example, the publisher is the gateway to the literary scene for an author or manuscript. He is responsible for selecting authors and manuscripts and so determines which writer can try their luck, if at all. Therefore, the metaphor of a gatekeeper who plays a key role between author and market is often used for the publisher and is thus a significant force to be reckoned with. He sets a heavy stamp on book production in both senses of the word. The publisher determines what and who may enter or be kept out.

In any event, Bourdieu's views proved to be fruitful for historical book research. The terms he uses, not only synchronically but also diachronically, can lead to better insights into the functioning of the actor institutions involved in the book trade, as well as in the changes occurring over time.

Regarding the production of all kinds of text media, the analytical bibliography, building further on

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Hellinga's studies and others, has achieved an enduring position in book studies. Here too, the theory has developed further. The study of the book as a material object in its individual history of development repeatedly shows how external factors exert a fundamental influence on the content of the text during a book's entire production. Just as English bibliographers, including Walter Wilson Greg, Ronald B. McKerrow and Alfred William Pollard, had inspired Hellinga's Copy and print in the Netherlands, so have their compatriot Philip Gaskell and American colleagues such as G. Thomas Tanselle and Fredson Bowers succeeded in shaping the study of analytical bibliography. Piet Verkruijsse, one of the most vocal practitioners in this country next to Frans Janssen, gives a detailed descriptive bibliography of the work of the seventeenth-century Zeeland writer Mattheus Smallegange in his thesis (1983). Meanwhile, several monographs have seen the light in which the development of theories around this aspect of book history is continued. In particular, the development of the stcn has contributed to a further development of theory on the possibilities and impossibilities of describing our national bibliography in retrospect, based on analytical bibliography principles. The combination of analytical-bibliographical studies with the growing study of editorial practices, now brought together in the Huygens Institute, has led to Mathijssen's manual of guidelines for editing studies and similar publications.

New insights

Two factors have played an important role in the developments above: the structural increase in the number and type of sources used and their critical appraisal in order to evaluate the validity of the results found. No matter whether it is, for example, auction catalogues, inventories, brochures, ego documents, newspaper advertisements, subscription lists, letters, booksellers' customer records, the stcn, or author portraits, they have all contributed to a better understanding of all aspects of the production, distribution and consumption of text media such as books, periodicals, newspapers, series, magazines, almanacs, farce books, trilogies and novels. In addition, access to those sources through various databases and digitisation has boosted statistical research enormously.

Even though book history has indeed experienced a broad interpretation of theories and methods since 1962, for some it does not go far enough. There is a certain perceptible discomfort because the way the profession is practiced limits progress in the achieving of new insights. There is little reflection on what leads to a particularly ‘descriptive’ approach. In this light, according to Brouwer, there is too much elaboration of old visions and too little work carried out on innovative methods and insights. Furthermore, José de Kruif believes that book studies lack a solid methodology and a progressive armamentarium. In particular, gains could be made by applying methods from other disciplines such as economics and sociology. Although the context of the book trade is recognized as embedded in a socio-economic situation, in the main it comes no further than that. The Darnton model is, to her, not a scientific model since ‘the influence of variables on each other’ is described in it. She calls it a checklist, ‘a very general recipe without obligations. It does not even say: take two eggs. It says: think of the eggs.’

Nevertheless, since 1962 the professional practice of book studies has clearly won in influence and quantity, also internationally. It has grown considerably, as shown in the survey published by Marieke van Delft in 2006. Book studies as a discipline has managed to gradually carve out a niche for itself despite its infancy. Due to the Dutch Historical Book Society, founded in 1994, it has also achieved a more prominent identity with its own yearbook and series that has appeared for some years under the umbrella of the Dr.

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P.A. Tiele Foundation, an organisation for coordinating collaboration in book scholarship in the Netherlands. The Flemish Book History Workgroup, established in 1996, also contributes to the recognition of book studies. The launch of the English and Dutch digital History of the printed book Bibliopolis (2003), by the National Library has promoted this recognition still further. The fact that the one-man business, such as that of De La Fontaine Verwey that was brought to a satisfactory end in 1962, remains a thing of the past should not be omitted here.

It is to hope that the readers of the articles presented here will take up the challenge of book studies research to ensure more insights and progress in this field. In any case, our authors have certainly taken up the torch and for that we are very grateful.

References

R. Darnton, De kus van Lamourette. Bespiegelingen over mentaliteitsgeschiedenis. Amsterdam, 1990. ‘What is the History of Books?’ appeared originally in Books and Society in History, edited by Kenneth E. Carpenter. New York 1983, 3-26.

R. Darnton, ‘“What is the History of Books?” Revisited’, in: Modern intellectual history, 4, 3 (2007), 495-508.

See also E. van Meerkerk, ‘Dyades, lijnendragers en netwerken. Een model voor bestudering van de productie, distributie en consumptie van het gedrukte woord in de achttiende eeuw’, in: De achttiende eeuw 35 (2003), 160-175 and A. van der Weel, ‘The Communications Circuit Revisited’, in: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 8 (2001), 13-25.

M. McLuhan, The medium is the message. An inventory of effects and The Gutenberg galaxy. The making of typographic man, both from 1962 (!).

J.J. Kloek, ‘Synthese en slotbeschouwing’, in: T. Bijvoet e.a. (ed.), Bladeren in andermans hoofd. Over lezers en leescultuur. Nijmegen 1996, 309-318. Citation from p. 309.

P.J. Buijnsters, ‘Nederlandse leesgezelschappen uit de 18^e eeuw’, in: Idem (ed.), Nederlandse literatuur van de achttiende eeuw. Veertien verkenningen. Utrecht 1984, 183-198, B. van Selm, ‘Onderzoek naar de privé-bibliotheek van een Hollandse burger uit de zeventiende eeuw. Analyse van het boekenbezit van Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1665)’, in: Dokumentaal, 13 (1984), 64-66, J.J. Kloek, ‘Lezen als levensbehoefte. Roman en romanpubliek in de tweede helft van de 18^e eeuw’, in: Literatuur, 1 (1984), 136-142.

B. van Selm, Een menighte treffelijcke Boecken, Nederlandse boekhandelscatalogi in het begin van de zeventiende eeuw. English summary. Utrecht 1987. ▸ For a more extensive historical outline see P. Hoftijzer, ‘Leesonderzoek in Nederland over de periode 1700-1850. Een stand van onderzoek’, in: T. Bijvoet e.a. (red.), Bladeren in andermans hoofd. Over lezers en leescultuur. Nijmegen 1996, 164-182, P. Delsaerdt, ‘De geduldige uitvoering van prometheïsche ambities. Onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van de leescultuur in Nederland 1995-2005’, in: S. van Rossem and M. de Wilde, Boekgeschiedenis in het kwadraat. Context & casus. [= Handelingen van het contactforum ‘Boekgeschiedenis in het kwadraat: context & casus. 9 december 2005]. Brussel 2006, 97-108. ▸ For Zwolle, see H. Brouwer, Lezen en schrijven in de provincie, De boeken van Zwolse boekverkopers 1777-1849. Leiden 1995. On The Hague: J. de Kruif, Liefhebbers en gewoontelezers. Leescultuur in Den Haag in de achttiende eeuw. Zutphen 1999. For Groningen P.Th.F.M. Boekholt: ‘Leescultuur in Groningen’, in: P.Th.F.M. Boekholt e.a. (ed.), Rondom de reductie, Vierhonderd jaar provincie Groningen, 1594-1994. Assen 1994, 266-286

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and H. van der Laan, Het Groninger boekbedrijf. Drukkers, uitgevers en boekhandelaren in Groningen tot het eind van de negentiende eeuw. Assen 2005. For Middelburg, see: J.J. Kloek and W.W. Mijnhardt, Leescultuur in Middelburg aan het begin van de negentiende eeuw. Middelburg 1988. ▸ For concrete applications of Genette, see (among others) B.P.M. Dongelmans, ‘Ware liefde in drie delen. Het verschijnsel romantrilogie in Nederland in de twintigste eeuw’, in: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 7 (2000), 27-48 and ‘Tweehonderd jaar na 1782. Veranderingen in de paratekst van de roman Sara Burgerhart’, in: G-J. Johannes, J. de Kruif, J. Salman, (ed.), Een groot verleden voor de boeg. Cultuurhistorische opstellen voor Joost Kloek. Leiden 2004, 107-130.

K. van Rees and G.J. Dorleijn, ‘Het Nederlandse literaire veld 1800-2000’, in: G.J. Dorleijn and K. van Rees (ed.), De productie van literatuur. Het Nederlandse literaire veld 1800-2000. Nijmegen 2006, 15-37. See also De impact van literatuuropvattingen in het literaire veld. Aandachtsgebied literatuuropvattingen van de Stichting Literatuurwetenschap. 's-Gravenhage, 1993, and: H. Verdaasdonk and K. Rekvelt, ‘De kunstsociologie van Pierre Bourdieu’, in: De revisor, 8 (1981) 3, 49-57. ▸ A book scholarship application written by F. de Glas, Nieuwe lezers voor het goede boek. De Wereldbibliotheek en Ontwikkeling/De Arbeiderspers voor 1940. Amsterdam 1989. ▸ For results relevant to various institutions, see G.J. Dorleijn and K. van Rees (ed.), De productie van literatuur. Het Nederlandse literaire veld 1800-2000. Nijmegen 2006, 19-20. ▸ For the analytical bibliography, see P.J. Verkruijsse, Mattheus Smallegange (1624-1710). Zeeuws historicus, genealoog en vertaler. Descriptieve persoonsbibliografie. Nieuwkoop 1983, F.A. Janssen, Technique & design in the history of printing. Houten 2004; for progressive insights regarding analytical bibliography, see B.P.M. Dongelmans, ‘Koerswijzigingen in de bibliografische en boekhistorische wetenschap’, in: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 6 (1999), 207-222. ▸ For editing studies, see M. Mathijssen, Naar de letter. Handboek editiewetenschap. 3^e ongewijzigde oplage. Den Haag 2003. ▸ For the history of Dutch literature, see for example, H. Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur, 1400-1560. Amsterdam 2007; K. Porteman and M. Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1560-1700. Amsterdam 2008. ▸ For the inadequacies in theory development and progress, see H. Brouwer, ‘Vermoeide helden’, in: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 3 (1996), 201-210 and J. de Kruif ‘Boekhistorici en hun theoriën: Kennis of inzicht? Waarom boekgeschiedenis te boekhistorisch is’, in: S. van Rossem and M. de Wilde, Boekgeschiedenis in het kwadraat. Context & casus. [= Handelingen van het contactforum ‘Boekgeschiede-nis in het kwadraat: context & casus. 9 december 2005]. Brussel 2006, 9-19. The citation on p. 15.

M. van Delft, ‘History of the book in the Low Countries. A short survey of current education, research and presentation’, in: M. van Delft, F. de Glas, J. Salman (eds.), New perspectives in book history. Contributions from the Low Countries, Zutphen 2006, 7-15.

J. Salman, ‘De middelpuntvliedende kracht van de boekgeschiedenis’, in: Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, 4 (2008), 416-429.