Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Book trade
(876 words)

1. Organizational forms

The manufacturing book trade (encompassing both the print shop, see printing, and the publishing house) and the retail book trade (product range) were not yet clearly distinct in the first centuries of the early modern period. Hybrid forms continued to exist even in the 18th century. The first profession to emerge as a phenomenon of the book industry, during the time of the incunabula (from ca. 1480-1500) was the Buchführer, precursor to the bookseller. The Buchführer would se…

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Schneider, Ute, “Book trade”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_017850>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160907



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