Leading scholars investigate the interaction between authors, publishers, booksellers, readers and regulatory bodies in England and France across three centuries, to show the key role that the book trade - resisting or adapting to external pressure - has played in what is permissible to publish. In this collection of essays, leading scholars investigate the interaction between authors, publishers, booksellers, readers, and regulatory bodies in England and France across three centuries, and show the key role that the book trade--resisting or adapting to external pressure--has played in defining what is permissible to publish. The medium of print has always been identified as a crucial element in the exercise of power. Since the invention of printing a combination of interests - political, religious and cultural - have borne down on the Press in an attempt to shape and contain its output. Each stage of the production and distribution of printed material can be seen as a battlefield of competing ideologies, whether organized through such institutions as the Stationers' Company, Parliament, and the lending library, or represented by broad divisions within society at large. In this collection of essays leading scholars investigate the interaction between authors, publishers, booksellers, readers and regulatory bodies in England and France across three centuries, and show the key role that the book trade - resisting or adapting to external pressure - has played in defining what is permissible to publish. - See more at: http://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/37463/robin-myers-michael-harris/censorship-and-the-control-of-print-in-england-and-france-1600-1910#sthash.LH8UYKGk.dpuf -- Publisher's website.