Literair auteurs als aanvragers van boekverkopersprivileges in de Republiek: Reputaties en verdiensten

Abstract

This is an exploratory study of printing privileges requested by literary authors in the Dutch Republic during the long seventeenth century. Copyright for authors in the Netherlands was only formally arranged in the nineteenth century, but authors claimed ownership over their texts before that as well. Printing privileges were one of the instruments available to authors, although these were most often requested by booksellers. Moreover, requesting a printing privilege could harm an author’s reputation, especially in the case of literary authors, for whom financial advancement was a taboo. Still, some literary authors did request printing privileges. This article is based on an analysis of both the requests and the use of these privileges by literary authors, and shows how both financial advancement and reputation management were important motives for them. As such, this article argues book historians should regard printing privileges as more than only protection against piracy.