The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture. Volume I: Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660. Joad Raymond, editor. Oxford University Press. £95.00. xxix + 672 pages. ISBN 978-0-19928704-8. Using a large team of scholars drawn from a variety of countries and some 46 essays, the editor sets out to answer seven questions. What did most people read in the years between 1475 and 1660? Where was their reading material obtained? Where did it originate? What effect did it have on readers' lives? How was it produced and distributed? What were its relations to 'the wider world of print culture' . Finally, how did it develop during this period? Contributors deal with the period as a whole and their essays are grouped into five. The first looks at historical contexts including not just countries in the UK but topics such as oral culture, libel, the book trade, reading strategies, popular Uteracy and society and the social life of books. The second part looks at international comparisons with France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and Germany while the third part is devoted to themes such as religion, rhetoric, poUtics, images, women, London, Parliament and the press, and war. The fourth part examines 'forms and genres' such as news, medical works, chapbooks, playbooks, science, ballads and broadsides, popular history and almanacs to name just some. The final section has eight 'case studies' or years of particular significance, e.g. 1535, 1603, 1641 and 1660. By the terminus ad quern printed books had, in the editor's words, 'become part of everyday life for a significant proportion of the population of England and Wales'. How that extraordinary change came about is weU described in the first volume of this important new series. (R.G.C.)