Serial publication was the engine that drove the generalized expansion of print through London and the nation during the long eighteenth century. This chapter offers a short sequence of temporal snapshots within which some of the variables in the history of the newspaper during this long period can be indicated. The years chosen, 1720, 1775 and 1830, simply offer an evenly spaced sequence from which it is possible to take stock of the changes that crystallized around them. This is a supply-side view with the emphasis placed on the newspaper as a part of the output of the general trade in print. The year 1830 was pivotal in the history of the London newspapers. Change had begun, but the elements that linked the publications of 1720, 1775 and 1830 were probably stronger than the differences. In organisation, scale of production and character of content and readership, the main London newspapers stood in a recognizable evolutionary relationship to each other.

To understand the dynamics of the reprint trade, this chapter first considers the issue of copyright and to review how booksellers in Ireland and Scotland took advantage of their distance from London to reprint the titles they wanted. Next, it discusses the cogent economic analysis put forward by members of the trade desperate for clarification of the often murky distinction between piracy and legitimate reprinting. The economic arguments of Home and Foulis were borne out by events in the second half of the long eighteenth century. An earlier mode of bookselling faded away as the accelerating commodification of print gave rise to modern publishing. This change coincided with the conceptual shift described by Trevor Ross: property, once viewed as an 'object of ownership and right', came to be regarded as the 'subject of production and exchange', its worth acquired through 'circulation within a dynamic market economy'.

The term 'publishing', used to denote a discrete and stable commercial practice, dates from the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The years of Romanticism saw the English book trade change from a craft to something that might plausibly be called an industry. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the British book trade had enjoyed a long period of stability. A considerable proportion of the increase in publishing is accounted for by the expansion of commercial novel publishing. Publishing had always been concentrated in London, indeed, it was virtually a metropolitan monopoly until the mid-eighteenth century. As some firms concentrated on publishing, so others saw new opportunities in the old enterprises of retailing and wholesaling. At the end of the eighteenth century the law, practices and constitution of the book trade had already changed profoundly, and its market had expanded enormously. Printing was undergoing its own industrial revolution.