The Business of Books

Last night I finished James Raven's The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade. The storyline is not as engaging as Richard Sher's Enlightenment and the Book, but Raven's work will be an indispensable source for scholars studying early modern printing and publishing.

The footnotes to other sources is worth the purchase price. Raven cites a multitude of primary and secondary sources, which is very helpful if you are looking for books and journal articles on the history of the book, particularly in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.