Ian Gadd On A History of the Stationers Company

Sponsored by The Caxton Club

May Midday Program

Join Caxton Club members and Ian Gadd, Professor in English Literature, Bath Spa University, UK, for his talk on the “History of the Stationers Company.”

Well, here comes another of those Johnny-come-lately organizations that seem to pop up now and then. The Worshipful Company of Stationers in the City of London didn’t even get going until 1403 and wasn’t recognized with a royal charter until 1557. Practically yesterday.

Yet somehow this ragtag group of limners, bookbinders, booksellers, and text writers seemed to make a go of it. They came up with this strange idea of a “copyright” and were early adopters of those new fangled moveable types.

Not sure that there’s enough “English literature” produced since the fifteenth century to weave into a bookish tale, but our speaker, Dr. Ian Gadd from Bath Spa University will give it a go in a generously illustrated presentation about the History of the Stationers’ Company — of which he is a freeman.

Though he was educated at Oxford and the University of Edinburgh he speaks enough American to be a faculty member of Virginia’s Rare Book School. He was editor of the first volume of The History of Oxford University Press and is general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift.

So don’t be stationary! Get moving and register today to join us at the Union League Club or to slip into this hot bubble Bath of a program at the Caxton Zoom Spa. (Towels not provided.)

To register, click here, This is a hybrid event.