Street Literature

Chapter 5 explores the way in which cheap print was sold on the streets in early modern Scotland, and particularly in Edinburgh. It examines the world of outdoor commerce in general, before detailing the ways in which broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers were vended in public places. It focuses on the ‘paper criers’ and ‘running stationers’ who plied their trade in the markets and thoroughfares. The coffeehouses of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other burghs are identified and described, and the ways in which print circulated in them are recovered. The chapter illustrates the public and communal nature of much cheap print and suggests that this characteristic helps to explain why so little of it has survived.