Introduction

The Introduction sets out the scenario in which native Bengali commercial enterprises in printing and publishing began and subsequently thrived in the context of colonial rule and the active participation of the British. It then introduces the text and lays down the plan for a microstudy underlining its significance in the larger story of printing and publishing in Bengal. The text belonged to a genre of sacred verse compositions, reading which led us to the scribal world that printing gradually came to displace. Tracking the ubiquitous presence of the text in this newly introduced space of printing takes us to various cultural pit stops of 19th century Calcutta. I call it the afterlife of the 18th century text. Finally, it indicates how the book hopes to engage with other historical researches on printing and publishing in India and how a study such as this helps us redefine the descriptive category, ‘popular,’ within the field.