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>> From: H-Net Staff <revhelp@mail.h-net.msu.edu> >> Subject: REVIEW: Stern on Pickett, 'Bibliography of the East India Company: Books, Pamphlets and Other Materials Printed between 1600 and 1785' >> >> Catherine Pickett. Bibliography of the East India Company: Books, >> Pamphlets and Other Materials Printed between 1600 and 1785. London >> British Library, 2011. Maps. 301 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN >> 978-0-7123-5844-6. >> >> Reviewed by Philip J. Stern (Department of History, Duke University) >> Published on H-Albion (July, 2013) >> Commissioned by Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth >> >> Sometime around the mid-1780s, an East India Company employee named >> Thomas Wilks set about the task of collating printed tracts about the >> company; the project, which only covered pamphlets from 1661 to 1726, >> stalled permanently at his death in 1791. Despite his efforts, >> systematically collecting and cataloguing printed materials about the >> company was never as high a priority for either the company or its >> institutional successors as command over its manuscript and archival >> records. Although we have come to recognize in recent years the >> importance of writing in various forms to the making of the company's >> regime at home and abroad,[1] very few have attempted the Herculean, >> if not Sisyphean, task of giving order to the magnificent chaos of >> the world of printing by and about the East India Company, especially >> in the period prior to its relentless territorial expansion from the >> late eighteenth century onward. It is not hard to see why. By her own >> telling, it took Catherine Pickett more than three decades and the >> introduction of digitized catalogues to make something like this >> possible, but for the reader and researcher at least, _Bibliography >> of the East India Company_ was well worth the wait. This book >> catalogues the history of printing by and about the East India >> Company from its first chartering in 1600 until its constitutional >> transformation with the creation of the Board of Control in 1784. >> Scouring holdings primarily in the British Library, but also in >> repositories elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the United States, >> Pickett has produced a publication of immense value. It could not >> come at a better time, as the growing interest in the early East >> India Company among students and scholars has only been matched by >> the daunting availability and awareness of such texts through >> ever-expanding online databases and collections. >> >> This volume can be recommended equally as a starting place for those >> just getting interested in the early East India Company, as a handy >> reference for a seasoned veteran scholar, or as a solid guide for >> anyone who may fall in between. In addition to the many more general >> uses of such a bibliography, it provides a one-stop shop of sorts for >> a variety of aspects of publishing on the company that can be elusive >> or tedious to trace. For example, the book lists multiple copies of >> works, complete with shelf marks or archival citations. It also >> offers, when necessary, annotations explaining a publication's >> content, detailing its attribution, or providing material information >> about the texts themselves. Pickett has traced works dedicated to or >> published under the patronage of the company, as well as reprints or >> later collections of older writings that shed interesting light on >> the continuity of debates over the company's affairs. (On pages >> 151-152, for example, I learned to my great delight that Henry >> Dundas, the first president of the Board of Control, seems to have >> owned a 1771 imprint of the collected works of the >> seventeenth-century political economist Charles Davenant.) The book >> also offers separate title, author, and subject indexes, the last of >> which is brisk but effective in allowing anyone interested in >> particular themes or genres of printing--say, cargo lists or >> sermons--easy access to such material across the span of the period >> covered in the book. >> >> However, this bibliography_ _should be approached not only as a >> resource for historians but also as a history of the early company in >> its own right told _through _its engagement with print. Primarily >> chronological in its organization, it draws out crucial themes as >> they developed, particularly in the form of brief introductions to >> selected years throughout. Along the way, Pickett traces through the >> company, its advocates, and its rivals' use of print a remarkable >> number of issues related to the company's history: early voyages, >> battles with interlopers and rivals, the Amboina massacre, the >> emergence of the "new" Company and their union, eighteenth-century >> warfare and territorial expansion in India, and many more. In the >> process, it becomes evident just how integrated this history was with >> many of the critical flash points of early modern British history: >> Elizabethan and Jacobean overseas expansion; seventeenth-century >> Anglo-Dutch rivalry; Cromwell and the Interregnum; the Glorious >> Revolution; the South Sea Bubble; the war of the Austrian Succession, >> the Seven Years' War, and the American rebellion; and of course, the >> history of print, the book, and the public sphere.[2] In fact, a >> reader can see quite conspicuously both the periodic flash points and >> the mounting importance of the East India Company to British >> politics, culture, and finance in the balance of the publications >> over time: the company's first century occupies only the first >> seventy-eight pages of the _Bibliography_, and a significant amount >> of that is focused alone in the decade after the Glorious Revolution. >> By comparison, the period covering 1700 to 1785 takes up almost twice >> that space, with the period between the debates over the 1773 >> Regulating Act and the aftermath of the 1784 India Act occupying the >> last hundred pages of the book. >> >> As Pickett notes, one could nor should not expect a work such as this >> to be comprehensive. There is no doubt that specialists on some >> aspect or another of the company's history will immediately be able >> to find one or two books or pamphlets missing from the list, or >> perhaps might arrive at a more or less restrictive definition of what >> counts as print "about" the company. In fact, many of the boundaries >> put on this study are self-consciously imposed. Given limitations on >> space and time, for example, newspapers have not been included, and >> given its chronological frame, the book only tangentially touches on >> the vibrant history of print in British India, particularly in late >> eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Calcutta. Pickett also warns >> the reader early on that one might be surprised by the "paucity of >> material relating directly to India," which she credits to the >> failure of the public to be interested in the issues of governance in >> India until the debates of the 1770s (p. viii). In a relative sense, >> it may be quite true that qualitatively and quantitatively a >> remarkable amount of print by and about the company was dedicated to >> "domestic" affairs, ranging from the publication of routine sales to >> its place in the great political controversies of the day. Still, one >> cannot but wonder if this perception might be vitiated slightly had >> company-related print been extended to include a more significant >> amount of writing by early modern English travelers in Asia, so much >> of which was by its very nature a comment of some sort on the East >> India Company; for example, one finds here Robert Knox's _Historical >> Relation of the Island Ceylon _(1681)_ _(presumably owing to its >> dedication to the company), but not such works as John Fryer's _A New >> Account of East-India and Persia_ (1698) or the interloper Alexander >> Hamilton's scathing critique of the company in his _A New Account of >> the East Indies_ (1727). The book does include a good many printed >> maps of Asia in its ambit, though it might also be mentioned that >> other visual texts are less well represented, such as the sorts of >> political caricature and cartoons that played a pivotal role in >> shaping later eighteenth-century debates over the company's affairs. >> >> These are, however, merely passing observations, prompted more by the >> great wealth of what is here rather than any great gap in what is >> not. In the end, this book is a real accomplishment, representing >> original, painstaking, and enterprising work in an increasingly >> crowded field of company studies, which will certainly be of great >> use and interest not only to historians of British India but also to >> historians of early modern Britain, print culture, political economy, >> and many more besides. I certainly know it will be one East India >> Company book sure to be perched conspicuously within reach on my >> shelf for years to come. >> >> Notes >> >> [1]. See most notably Miles Ogborn, _Indian Ink: Script and Print in >> the Making of the English East India Company_ (Chicago: University of >> Chicago, 2007). >> >> [2]. In addition to Ogborn, above, see as well, among others, Douglas >> R. Burgess Jr., "Piracy in the Public Sphere: The Henry Every Trials >> and the Battle for Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Print Culture," >> _Journal of British Studies_ 48, no. 4 (2009): 887-913; Anthony >> Milton, "Marketing a Massacre: Amboyna, The East India Company and >> the Public Sphere in Early Modern England," in _Politics of the >> Public Sphere in Early Modern England_, ed. Peter Lake and Steve >> Pincus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 168-190; and >> Jeremy Osborn, "India and the East India Company in the Public Sphere >> of Eighteenth-Century Britain," in _The Worlds of the East India >> Company_, ed. H. V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln, and Nigel Rigby >> (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), 201-222. >> >> Citation: Philip J. Stern. Review of Pickett, Catherine, >> _Bibliography of the East India Company: Books, Pamphlets and Other >> Materials Printed between 1600 and 1785_. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. >> July, 2013. >> URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35269 >> >> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons >> Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States >> License. >> >> -- > > -- > --
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