ABSTRACT

Some years ago I attempted a rough comparison of the early book trades in two Midlands counties, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, initially as a way of testing out the research potential of the British Book Trade Index (BBTI) in relation to two counties whose book trades have received surprisingly little scholarly attention.1 A series of workshops organized in Leicester on the subject of ‘Book-Trade Networks’ offered occasions for the presentation of some preliminary statistical ndings.2 What follows updates, in part one, the data offered in those presentations and develops the comparison further, before going on in part two to explore the early Nottinghamshire trade in more detail.3