Elizabeth Evenden: Patents, Pictures and Patronage: John Day and the Tudor Book Trade (St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History). Aldershot, Burlington: Ashgate, 2008. Pp. xi + 220. Cloth £ 55.00.

• David M. Bergeron

John Day (1522–1584) became the leading English printer of the latter half of the sixteenth century, thanks to his technical ability and his connections to influential and helpful patrons, so Elizabeth Evenden argues persuasively. To Evenden’s list of patents, pictures, and patronage as instrumental in Day’s success, we could add Protestantism, profits, paper, and piracy as descriptive of his benefits and challenges. As a printer of 350 texts, Day captured the market for tracts and grand folios that tapped into the emerging Protestant movement. Even under the Catholic Mary Tudor, Day flourished, despite a brief period of arrest. This printer underscores the power and importance of the printing press in furthering the Reformation cause. However we view him, Day emerges as one of the great entrepreneurs of the late sixteenth century: a shrewd businessman, as well as skillful and astute printer.

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