Commemorations brought authors and their works to wide public attention, partly through reports in the newspaper and magazine press, and, when such occasions were marked by the erection of public statues, by a continuing visible presence. They were unavoidable reminders of a particular and selected past. There were, however, further remains and archival strata that invited investigation. In these archival survivals lay the explanation, rationale and often the justification for modern religious, political and other aspects of social organisation.

By exploring the decision-making processes that were made by English publishers and printers as they navigated both readers’ increasing demands for books and the regulations of the English crown and the City of London, Chapter 2 demonstrates how regulatory, economic, and material constraints upon the manufacture of English books as commodities affected their production. It considers how the English crown’s early directed efforts to control the spread of heretical and seditious material influenced herbal production, as well as the way that the circumstances of print publication changed radically in 1557 with the incorporation of the Stationers’ Company of London.