Writers abounded in seventeenth-century New England. From the
moment of colonization and constantly thereafter, hundreds of
people set pen to paper in the course of their lives, some to write
letters that others recopied, some to compose sermons as part of
their life work as ministers, dozens to attempt verse, and many
more to narrate a remarkable experience, provide written testimony
to a civil court, participate in a controversy, or keep some sort
of records--and of these everyday forms of writing there was no
limit.Every colonial writer knew of two different modes of
publication, each with its distinctive benefits and limitations.
One was to entrust a manuscript to a printer who would set type and
impose it on sheets of paper that were bound up into a book. The
other was to make handwritten copies or have others make copies,
possibly unauthorized. Among the colonists, the terms "publishing"
and "book" referred to both of these technologies. "Ways of
Writing" is about the making of texts in the seventeenth century,
whether they were fashioned into printed books or circulated in
handwritten form. The latter mode of publishing was remarkably
common, yet it is much less understood or acknowledged than
transmission in print. Indeed, certain writers, including famous
ones such as John Winthrop and William Bradford, employed scribal
publication almost exclusively; the Antimonian controversy of
1636-38 was carried out by this means until manuscripts relating to
the struggle began to be printed in England.Examining printed texts
as well as those that were handwritten, David D. Hall explores the
practices associated with anonymity, dedications, prefaces, errata,
and the like. He also surveys the meaning of authority and
authenticity, demonstrating how so many texts were prepared by
intermediaries, not by authors, thus contributing to the history of
"social" or collaborative authorship. Finally, he considers the
political contexts that affected the transmission and publication
of many texts, revealing that a space for dissent and criticism was
already present in the colonies by the 1640s, a space exploited
mainly by scribally published texts.
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