Prologue. Milton's trees; Introduction. Authorizing English botany; Part I. A History of Herbals: 1. Authorship, book history, and the effects of artifacts; 2. The stationers' company and constraints on English printing; 3. Salubrious illustration and the economics of English herbals; Part II. Anonymity in the Printed English Herbal: 4. Reframing competition: the curious case of the little Herball; 5. The Grete Herball and evidence in the margins; 6. 'Unpublished virtues of the earth': books of healing on the English renaissance stage; Part III. Authors and the Printed English Herbal: 7. William Turner and the medical book trade; 8. John Norton and the redemption of John Gerard.
In the early modern herbal, Sarah Neville finds a captivating example of how Renaissance print culture shaped scientific authority.
Sarah Neville is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University. She is an assistant editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare and an associate co-ordinating editor of the Digital Renaissance Editions.
'Sarah Neville's fascinating account of how stationers contributed
to the creation of botanical texts brings English herbals and the
early modern book trade together for the first time. Her reframing
of their history irrevocably alters our sense of their importance
for the publishers who commissioned them, the printers who
manufactured them, and the booksellers who retailed herbals as well
as for the Renaissance physicians, lay medical practitioners, and
elite and common readers who so frequently consulted them. Early
modern ecocritics will want to read this book along with book
historians, historians of science, and those interested in
Renaissance literature and culture.' Valerie Wayne, University of
Hawai'i at Mānoa
'In Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade, herbals come to life
as dynamic objects taking meaning from their print environment.
Focusing on the material form of the book provides Neville with a
crucial and nuanced tool for unveiling the commercial landscape out
of which attitudes toward natural history were indelibly shaped in
the early modern era. Rather than relying on an author-centered
approach, this book puts printers, booksellers, craftsmen, editors,
licensors, translators, playwrights, and readers center stage in
the production of botanical knowledge. What we learn is that
herbals are much more than repositories of information that mark
progress within traditional terms often used by historians of
science.' Wendy Wall, Northwestern University
'Informative, penetrating, and witty, Early Modern Herbals and the
Book Trade helps us see anew a genre of book we're familiar with
largely through their sumptuous illustrations. Immersing us in the
fascinating world of botanical publications at the front end of the
Enlightenment, Neville has produced a study that anyone interested
in the early modern era's engagement with the natural world will
want to read.' Douglas Bruster, The University of Texas at
Austin
'This is a unique text … Libraries with collections covering the
history of the book and printing, the history of medicine, or
Renaissance English literature would do well to add this volume to
their shelves … Highly recommended.' R. C. Hedreen, Choice
'In this lively, informative book, literary scholar, bibliographer,
and book historian Sarah Neville shows how publishers and readers
shaped the market for printed herbals, and herbals as material
texts, in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. …
Historians of science and medicine will profit from attending to
Neville's critical bibliographic, publisher-focused approach to
herbals.' Elizabeth Yale, Isis, a journal of the History of Science
Society
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