Albrecht Classen
Although it took several decades for the new printing press invented by Johann Gutenberg around 1400 to achieve the necessary maturity to supply the book market with ever-greater numbers of items for the reading audience, by ca. 1500 a major paradigm shift occurred that mostly left the history of the manuscript behind and allowed the rise of massproduced books, hence the emergence of bestsellers. One of those will be introduced and discussed here through the lens of its reception and print history. The Franciscan preacher and author Johannes Pauli produced with his Schimpf und Ernst (1522) a highly successful compilation of entertaining and didactic sermon tales that apparently managed to appeal to a broad audience throughout the entire century and far beyond. This study examines the subtle but also significant transformation of the book covers and marketing strategies facilitating the effects of a bestseller.