ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the story of print with Gangakishore Bhattacharya, the first Bengali entrepreneur in publishing. He chose Annadamangal and Bidyasundar as the first manuscript to print and publish and it was his choice that set the text off, on its extraordinary journey. It then follows the many editions of the text published in the course of the century to outline the business of book production and the culture it generated, unravelling the fate of Bidyasundar through different permutations of print. This exercise allows us to be privy to the world of Bengali book publishing especially in the early years of the 19th century, when the enterprises shared common spaces and interests. Annadamangal and Bidyasundar acted as a great leveller by serving equally well the modest publishing houses hidden in the back alley and elite publishers with their much-publicised program for change and improvement. This text and its many editions allow us to explore scribal and oral practices as well as those of performances.
