Ricardo Del Campo

When I first approached the Wikipedia assignment, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to edit. I checked out the section on "Printing," and couldn't find a way to edit the main entry. I was able to add Gaskell's bibliography text to the "Further Reading." I think my difficulty trying to edit that page may have something to do with its nature as a "funnel" page, meant to lead to other articles. Or maybe I'm just unfamiliar with Wikipedia.

On my second try, I attempted to find a page that was a. much smaller, and b. obviously needing elaboration. Both of these criteria were fulfilled by Richard Fields (printer). I was particularly amused by the statement, "In Field's era, the trades of printer and publisher were to some significant degree separate activities: booksellers acted as publishers and commissioned printers to do the requisite printing. Field concentrated more on printing than publishing: of the roughly 295 books he printed in his career, he was publisher of perhaps 112, while the rest were published by other stationers.^[3]This is apparently supported by a 1931 article in the Library, but the idea that -- even working with the assumption that this guy has his numbers right -- by publishing "only" 112 books this was somehow a minor part of Field's business is pretty ludicrous, even "in Field's era."

The majority of the article centers not on the actual activities of said Richard Field, but on his association with Shakespeare. All the links at the bottom of the page center around Shakespeare folios, even those of other printers. So for this project, I set about correcting one or two of the egregious errors-by-omission. To avoid having to dig up citation materials buried in my computer, I settled for inserting a few notes on Field's activities as a protestant propagandist and his Spanish publications/printings. I also corrected the mistaken "question" that Jacqueline Vautrollier, his first wife, was possibly the daughter of his former boss, and not Thomas Vautrollier's widow. Given the lack of information on this well known printer, it's not surprising that J. Vautrollier, also a printer, doesn't have her own page.