The Department of Hybrid Books: Thomas Milles between Manuscript and Print

It is now a commonplace that texts were malleable in early modern England regardless of their manuscript or print origins; but the publications of Thomas Milles strain these categories—and the vocabularies used to describe them—to the breaking point. Between 1599 and 1617, Milles published more than a dozen books outlining his schemes for fiscal reform, becoming one of Renaissance England's most prolific writers on economics. But virtually every surviving copy of every published text was customized after it left the press: Milles used manuscript marginalia and a bewildering array of printed slips (cut from larger sheets, pasted into place, and often modified by hand) to direct his works to specific readers and continue developing his arguments after they had been published. Milles provides our most elaborate example to date of an early modern author whose books are best described as multimedia hybrids.