Scotland’s Gutenberg: William Ged and the Invention of Stereotype Printing, 1725–49

Twentieth Kenneth Karmiole Lecture on the History of the Book Trade

Lecture by William Zachs, Director of the Blackie House Library and Museum

Stereotyping, print production from metal plates rather than moveable type, is known in a handful of examples before the nineteenth century. From the middle of that century, it was introduced as a more cost-effective manner of book and newspaper production. In his lecture William Zachs first outlines the origins of stereotype printing and then turns his focus to the ‘non-moveable type’ productions of Edinburgh goldsmith William Ged (c. 1683–1749). Taking a forensic look at Ged’s few known works, in particular his pocket editions of Sallust from 1739 and 1744, Zachs hypothesizes the existence of a group of previously unknown stereotyped books, thus offering a revised history of the nature of alternative methods of book production in Britain in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Dr. William Zachs is the Director of the Blackie House Library and Museum, a registered Scottish charity with a mission to bring Scottish culture to a wider audience through events, publications, exhibitions loans and collaborative projects. Housed in a seventeenth-century tenement in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town, the collection of some forty thousand items includes rare books and manuscripts, paintings, prints, sculpture and photography – along with antiquities, decorative objects, textiles, furniture and items from nature. Hailing from Hartford, Connecticut, Bill has lived in Edinburgh for over forty years. He is the author of The First John Murray and the Late Eighteenth-Century London Book Trade (1998), Without Regard to Good Manners: A Biography of Gilbert Stuart, 1743-1786 (1992), and numerous other shorter works. In 2013, the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters for his contributions to book historical studies and book curation. He is a Fellow of the National Library of Scotland and an Honorary Fellow at the universities of Edinburgh and Stirling.

The lecture is free to attend with advance registration. It will be held in-person at the Clark Library and livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. No registration is required to watch the livestream. Seating is limited at the Clark Library; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.

Image: Excerpt from William Ged’s Proposals, 1736. Courtesy of Dr. William Zachs.