What is this?

Hi, there! This is a newsletter about early printed books—that is, things printed in the first centuries of the printing press in the west (roughly between 1450 and 1800). There will be monthly letters that feature a book or a printing technique or some aspect of early printing that I think is cool. It’s kind of like the blogging I used to do at Wynken de Worde and at The Collation, only now it’s delivered straight to your inbox. Most of what I talk about in this newsletter ties in to my book Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide and its companion site EarlyPrintedBooks.com. If reading the book made you hungry for more cool things, Early Printed Fun will deliver that! If you are teaching with the book, this newsletter will help you flesh out examples and give you more material to work with. And if you’re just curious about why early books are interesting, I am here for that, too, and so is this newsletter.

Who are you?

Well, I’m Sarah Werner and sometimes I describe myself as an independent librarian and sometimes I just say that I’m a book historian and digital media scholar. I’ve been working with early printed books and outreach since 2007; before that I spent most of my time thinking about Shakespeare and performance. Either way, I’ve been teaching undergraduates at one place or another since 1996. I’ve written a lot of stuff, most relevant to this an introduction to working with early modern books, Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide (Wiley 2019). You can read more about what I do and who I am over at my digital home, sarahwerner.net.

Is this thing free?

For now! I’m planning on monthly free posts, some of which will be connected to images on EarlyPrintedBooks.com and will share further details about those items. I might add paying subscriptions down the line to build a community around discussing posts and teaching and to share additional information with.

How much will a subscription be?

I’m not sure yet! I think probably around $3-5 a month or $25-45 for a year. It will be a bargain, whatever it is, I promise. And you’ll be helping to support the development of my site and the creation of more resources for you to use!