| Summary: | <p>This thesis gives a timeline of English typography between 1509 and 1592, and uses it to examine some ways sixteenth-century typography could and can be read. It is founded on a database of typographic descriptions of 10,645 books printed in England or English between 1509 and 1592, representing 82% of known editions for this period. </p>
<p>Chapter 1 applies the data to interrogate the truism that blackletter signified English, while also showing correlations for other languages. The broad developments in the relationship between the English language and the three typefaces are described. The second half of the chapter zooms in to the imperfect manifestation of language on the page. Chapter 2 begins with hypotheses that connect typography to certain religious movements. It shows that typographically anomalous books are often those written by dissident authors, and in this group we find the first English book in roman, the first English roman W, and the first English book in italic. The continental design of English books printed by the Marian exiles in Geneva is read as an index of their enfranchisement in a transnational Calvinist community. </p>
<p>The topic of Chapter 3 is subject. A broad statistical picture of the relationship between typography and subject is given. Two distinct groups of books are considered in this context, both involving the reprinting of extant works. The first shows a fresh enthusiasm for roman type in humanist books between 1519 and 1522; the second argues that William Copland consciously archaized his vernacular reprints of the 1550s and 60s. Chapter 4 applies the concept of skeuomorphism to early modern book history in order to demonstrate how printers evoked engraved texts in printed books. The inscriptional origins of uppercase roman were exploited to evoke certain connotations of that medium, both in paratexts and endotexts. In light of the significance of typography explored in these chapters, Chapter 5 surveys the various strategies used to remediate typography in the present day, often causing its transformission. </p>
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