The Early Modern Book world was characterised by great variety, but also by fierce competition. Many printers and publishers responded by developing a highly specialised output, utilising skills and expertise that gave them a vital commercial edge, and deterred potential rivals. Books that required specialised typefaces (music and Greek texts) were inevitably the preserve of a small number of firms; but others took advantage of the sophisticated European distribution network to develop an international reputation for specific genres. The production of Books of Hours was dominated by a few Parisian firms; in 1541 Georg Joachim Rheticus would carry the precious manuscript of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus 1,000 kilometres across Europe to find a printing centre (Nuremberg) capable of doing it justice. But much less well capitalised firms could also find their niche in the new genres that underpinned the market: almanacs, calendars and news.

This conference is the latest in the sequence hosted by the St Andrews Book project group, and the first since the launch of the Universal Short Title Catalogue with its unique subject search facility.

Interested scholars are invited to submit papers for consideration on any aspect of book specialisation in the early modern period. A title and one paragraph synopsis should be sent to the organisers at the address given (sam223@st-andrews.ac.uk). Papers should be given in English. A volume based on papers given at this conference will be published in the Library of the Written Word with Brill.