The book market of the Habsburg Monarchy

Printing, publishing and book-selling contributed to the rise of a new knowledge industry and helped constitute and expand a critically aware reading public in the 18th century. The book market was within the framework of the complex Old Reich structures of superregional importance on the one hand but also encountered varied political, economic, legal and cultural conditions. The book trade was a largely ignored communication network for the heterogeneous multiethnic countries of the Habsburg monarchy and it is the aim of this research project ("The book market of the Habsburg Monarchy") to study the regional differences and the cultural texture of this book/reading culture. Preliminary work in the various regions will form the basis and the first step towards a synopsis of the book market in the Habsburg monarchy. By amending the compiled material we attempt to go beyond the national studies carried out so far and create an overall picture. The focus will be on the period 1750-1850, which was a transitional phase of the book culture because of new production, distribution and reception phenomena. The book culture is to be analysed on a wide basis of materials, and how several factors interact will be of particular importance (e.g. scope and kind of book production, publishers, printers, quest: Sortimenter retailers, and book binders; geographical distribution of the firms, religious denominations, languages and nationalities, literacy, trade routes, alternative forms of distribution, family networks and networks between domestic and foreign book traders, etc.) The analysis of the distribution of firms and regional characteristic will be complemented by the analysis of individual firms, which aims to go beyond anecdotal evidence. We would like to draw conclusion on how the book traders` communication systems worked on the whole. Firms which are of special interest due to their book-trading and publishing, their business contacts and their relationship to the state institutions will be dealt with in greater detail.

The project "The Book Market of the Habsburg Monarchy" (continued as project P18621-G08) follows an approach which is only about to be established in Austria`s scholarly practice: the transdisciplinary field of "book history", one of the most flourishing fields in today`s historical research. The methodical approach of our project is a comprehensive documentation of the book trade in various cities and regions of the Habsburg monarchy. This has been made possible through intensive cooperation with collaborators in the different regions. The survey is structured by a constant pattern of data collection. The time range is 1750-1850. Ideally, the following data were collected: Place, name of the firm, data on the firm`s existence, activities of the firm (publishing, book-selling, book-printing, arts and music dealers, book-binding etc), biographical data of owners, predecessors, successors to the firms; headquarters, branches, and commission agents as well as further optional details: languages, kinds of products (periodicals, newspapers, almanacs, calendars, series, ...) special printing types (Hebrew, Cyrillic, and others). The notes provide historical references, addresses, incidents of censorship, and much more. Furthermore, there is an index of sources and archive materials. Through the material compiled it has become possible for the very first time to draw up a geography of the history of the book in large parts of the Habsburg monarchy. The topographical material recorded enables readers to find out about particular firms. On the other hand, a quantitative and analytical evaluation from various perspectives (ranging from cultural studies, economic history to general history) can be carried out. Additionally, comparisons with the book trade in other countries are facilitated. There is now basic data on printers, book-sellers, and lithographers for the entire Hungarian area including Upper Hungary (today Slovakia), Croatia and Transylvania. The Hungarian paper mills, which until now have been known to researchers, are also accessible in the database, through references to their water-marks. The documentation for Prague, which was the second most important book-trading city of the monarchy from 1750- 1850, will be completed during the continuation of the project. The materials on enterprises in Brno/Brünn have been entered into the database as well. Most of the material for Galicia is available. Among the Austrian federal states, the complete data on Styria with the important centre of Graz has already been entered into the database. The survey for Vienna as the by far most important publishing city of the Habsburg monarchy has been completed. During the continuation of the project, we will finish the re-working of the Viennese materials into a manuscript, which is intended for publication as the fourth volume of the series "Buchforschung. Beiträge zum Buchwesen in Österreich" .