All the News That's Fit to Film?: Copying the Nichols Collection of Early London Newspapers

Abstract

Working with early newspapers is notoriously difficult, not to say onerous. Aside from questions of definition - what sort of format, content, or periodicity constitutes a newspaper? - tracking the multitude of serials that poured from the presses on a weekly or daily basis in later Stuart and early Georgian London has tested bibliographers and historians alike. Publishers lost count of their issue numbers, especially when a hasty reprinting of a day's edition was needed to meet unexpected demand, or, occasionally, to create demand by deliberately inflating these same numbers to give an exaggerated sense of the paper's regularity cum longevity. Compounding these bibliographic headaches is the hijacking of titles. Rival publications bearing the same nomenclature appeared on the capital's streets within hours of each other. Since it was not unusual for a title to be printed at more than one press, first readers were themselves not immediately aware of any counterfeit.