Commentary on Printer Joachim Wielandt's Privilege for Popular Chapbooks

Joachim Wielandt’s petition for a privilege to print and sell 97 different books for 30 years (22 July 1721) and the following report by the University Consistory reveal the increasingly complex dynamic between royal policies and market realities in Denmark-Norway at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Read together, the petition and report highlight how ownership of printed texts was negotiated with reference to the state-controlled book market, and not influenced by notions of authorial ownership.