ABSTRACT
Samuel Johnson’s denition of ‘network’ has become a classic of lexicography: ‘Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distance, with interstices between the intersections’.1 To an age which knew its Latin, the language of Johnson’s denition presented no problem; it was clear to his readers that he was talking about the characteristics of a physical object. The concept was redened for the twenty-rst century by the OED, but still with the explicit emphasis on physicality: ‘Work (esp. manufactured work) in which threads, wires, etc., are crossed or interlaced in the fashion of a net; freq. applied to light fabric made of threads intersecting in this way. Also in extended use’.2 The ‘extended use’ is to be found in the multitude of meanings with which we are now familiar ranging from the physical reality of a hard-wired telephone network to a description of social or professional circles. ‘Community’ has had a similar radical evolution in its relatively recent history. Originally simply meaning ‘the generality of people’, by the late eighteenth century it was beginning to mean ‘a group of people who share the same interests, pursuits, or occupation’, and phrases like ‘scientic community’ or ‘literary community’ are recorded.3 The book trade networks and communities which are the subject of this chapter are being described in language which is seriously anachronistic for much of the period under discussion. Yet the concepts are valuable, if only in challenging us to explore whether there was indeed a book trade ‘community’ in early modern England, and if so whether it developed networks which allowed it to operate cohesively.
