In the first decades of the printed book in Britain, the book trade was dominated by bookmakers from continental Europe. However, as the trade expanded and was consolidated by the incorporation of the Stationers’ Company in 1557, it has been treated as if it became more insular. Landmark histories of the book in Britain in the sixteenth century have, until recent years, tended to overestimate the extent to which books that were read in Britain were printed in Britain. As part of a revisionist trend in this field, this chapter explores the intertwined relationship between continental printers and booksellers in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. How did English authors view the possibilities, opportunities, and dangers of printing in continental Europe? How did religious, political, and commercial motives intertwine to encourage the printing of Latin works produced in England on the continent? And how were those continental printings of Latin works read and consumed back in England? Overall, the chapter offers a significant contribution to our ongoing reassessment of the interfused relationship between the history of the British and continental European book.

The third part of the book, on “Place”, is made up of chapters grouped by their relation to matters of space and geography. Chapter 9 analyses the use of topographic, cartographic and antiquarian sources, amplifying the study made by the cartographic historian J.H. Andrews in 1960, which has never been supplanted. It extends Andrews’ coverage, which omitted the Scottish portions of the Tour, and considers its relation to other topographers not previously mentioned in this context, as well as the products of mapmakers such as Herman Moll and John Senex. The chapter supplies new evidence on the use Defoe made of maps, and offers a fuller comparison with the works of his principal rival, the Journey of John Macky (1714-23). Finally, this section endorses the verdict of Andrews, that “In spite of its weaknesses the ‘Tour’ remains a great pioneer work of economic geography.”