The legal and administrative structure of the trade is the framework within which we must study its development. The history of that structure also suggests chronological divisions. At the beginning of the century, there were few printers and no newspapers in the provincial towns, but there were retailers with a long history of bookselling and stationery dealing. By 1730 every large town had a printer and a newspaper. The great copyright battle in the middle decades of the century was largely a battle fought by the London trade to win and retain the provincial market against the competition of Scottish, Irish, Dutch, and, to a much lesser extent, provincial ‘pirates’. Seen thus, the battle had no decisive outcome; the London booksellers lost their legal point, but not their trade. In the last quarter of the century, the economy of England changed so profoundly that the old battles became irrelevant. In a period of unprecedented growth there were profits for everyone, and the book trade benefited as much as any other.

The histories of the London and country trade are as interdependent as were the trades themselves. If we periodise the history of the trade in the eighteenth century, the periods 1695–C.1730, C.1730–C.1775, and C.1775–C.1800 are applicable to both. Of course, these divisions are not perfect, but they do offer a chronological framework parallel to the developments in the legal and administrative framework, within which we can study the growth and development of the trade.