More than fifty specialists have contributed to this new edition of volume 1 of The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. The design of the original work has established itself so firmly as a workable solution to the immense problems of analysis, articulation and coordination that it has been retained in all its essentials for the new edition. The task of the new contributors has been to revise and integrate the lists of 1940 and 1957, to add materials of the following decade, to correct and refine the bibliographical details already available, and to re-shape the whole according to a new series of conventions devised to give greater clarity and consistency to the entries.

This volume examines the Scottish book trade from c.1500 to c.1720, looking at booksellers, bookbinders, stationers and printers and their relationship to the forces of authority. The scale of the Scottish book trade in this period was surprisingly large, consisting of over 150 printers and over 400 booksellers, but its rate of growth was not constant as it was buffeted by the winds of economic and political circumstances. It is the public, not private world of book dissemination that is examined. Emphsis is placed more on supply than on demand. It is shown that the unique qualities of the printed book, with its blend of commerce and technology on the one hand, and intellect and ideology on the other, ensured that authority - burghs, church, governemt (crown and executive) and law courts - reacted with a complex response of liberty and prohibition. So it was for all nations experiencing the arrival of printing, but Scotland had its own particular range of dynamics, a distinct Scottish tradition.

This study establishes the remarkable presence of Shakespeare's plays and poems in the early modern English book trade.

This collection of pamphlets describes fifteen English witchcraft cases in detail, vividly recreating events to give the reader the illusion of actually being present at witchcraft accusations, trials and hangings. But how much are we victims of literary manipulation by these texts? The pamphlets are presented in annotated format, to allow the reader to decide. Some of the texts appear in print for the first time in three centuries, whilst others are newly edited to give a clearer picture of sources.