According to Jeremias Drexel, who published a guide to notetaking in 1641, reading well was as effortful as goldmining – and potentially as enriching. His book, the Aurifodina, was illustrated with a frontispiece showing two kinds of work. On the left, miners raise picks high over their heads, chipping gold from the rock. On the right, a scholar bends over his desk, carefully...
Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe by Anthony Grafton. Despite their obvious significance in the production of books, correctors were treated like manual labourers. One complained that he and his colleagues ‘would be off like a shot from this sweatshop’ given half a chance, ‘to earn their living by their intelligence and learning, not their hands’. They worked long hours, bent over proofs, smeared in thick ink. Scraping by on low wages, they lived alone in other people’s attics.