History Abridged: Publishing

Historian feature

Published: 2nd January 2020

The history of publishing

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles

For centuries the only way the written word could be communicated was by it being written down by hand. Scribes would take weeks, months or even years to complete one book, making them rare, exclusive and expensive. All of which was fine because most people were illiterate anyway. However, the Reformation and the need for ordinary people to access religious texts, along with technology, began to change all that.

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