{"title":"“Stokesley Books”: John Slater Pratt and Early Victorian Publishing","authors":"M. Chase","doi":"10.1080/20514530.2018.1451445","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The burgeoning popular market for cheap reading material in the mid-nineteenth century offered major opportunities for the print trades. Based in the Yorkshire North Riding town of Stokesley, John Slater Pratt (1807–67) transformed a country printing shop into a major producer of cheap novels and non-fiction books. He printed over 300 titles, often in several editions, most of them in the years 1841–53. Many appeared under the imprint of his own London office (1841–50), but he also printed for, and often in partnership with, a range of London and provincial publishers. This was achieved in the intensively competitive market that accompanied the industrialisation of book production and retailing, and in spite of Stokesley not being served by the railways. The firm's origins are explored, and its output analysed. Pratt's short but energetic career offers an illuminating case study both of local industrial history and entrepreneurship, and of the interplay between the English regions and the metropolis in book production, distribution and marketing.","PeriodicalId":37727,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Regional and Local History","volume":"13 1","pages":"32 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20514530.2018.1451445","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Regional and Local History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20514530.2018.1451445","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT The burgeoning popular market for cheap reading material in the mid-nineteenth century offered major opportunities for the print trades. Based in the Yorkshire North Riding town of Stokesley, John Slater Pratt (1807–67) transformed a country printing shop into a major producer of cheap novels and non-fiction books. He printed over 300 titles, often in several editions, most of them in the years 1841–53. Many appeared under the imprint of his own London office (1841–50), but he also printed for, and often in partnership with, a range of London and provincial publishers. This was achieved in the intensively competitive market that accompanied the industrialisation of book production and retailing, and in spite of Stokesley not being served by the railways. The firm's origins are explored, and its output analysed. Pratt's short but energetic career offers an illuminating case study both of local industrial history and entrepreneurship, and of the interplay between the English regions and the metropolis in book production, distribution and marketing.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Regional and Local History aims to publish high-quality academic articles which address the history of regions and localities in the medieval, early-modern and modern eras. Regional and local are defined in broad terms, encouraging their examination in both urban and rural contexts, and as administrative, cultural and geographical entities. Regional histories may transcend both local and national boundaries, and offer a means of interrogating the temporality of such structures. Such histories might broaden understandings arrived at through a national focus or help develop agendas for future exploration. The subject matter of regional and local histories invites a number of methodological approaches including oral history, comparative history, cultural history and history from below. We welcome contributions situated in these methodological frameworks but are also keen to elicit inter-disciplinary work which seeks to understand the history of regions or localities through the methodologies of geography, sociology or cultural studies. The journal also publishes book reviews and review articles on themes relating to regional or local history.