RICHARD B. SHER, The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America.

Abstract

IF bibliography is out, the consolation is that the history of the book is in. Richard Sher applies the concerns and research techniques of book history to the Scottish Enlightenment, and he is well qualified to do it. The title might seem to suggest a reduction of the Enlightenment to the Scottish version, but the point rather is that the Scottish Enlightenment was much more than a Scottish phenomenon. Those not fascinated with Scotland can still learn a tremendous amount from this study about the publishing business in the handpress era after the role of cultural broker passed from the scholar-printer to the ‘publisher’, normally a bookseller. From its inception the Scottish Enlightenment was a British affair, beginning with the ‘London-Edinburgh publishing axis’ of bookseller Andrew Millar, printer William Strahan, and bookseller Alexander Kincaid. Spreading to North America along with the book trade, Scottish influence became a supranational force. The combination of the Scots Londoners Millar and Strahan has long been familiar for its role in producing and marketing writings by the Englishmen Fielding, Johnson, and Gibbon, but here we see their contribution in a different light. The story of the Scots book trade as Sher tells it is a constructive accommodation between the interests of civilization and personal profit. Millar, Strahan, and their best authors could all prosper from the trade, and if Hume and Smith are the culture heroes, it is the book-trade axis that found or created the market allowing their impact on intellectual history.