| Sumario: | During the 1840s and 1850s, lithographic presses in North India published over seven hundred titles in Persian, many of which were reprinted several times over subsequent years. These industries succeeded in drawing newly literate as well as established readerships, who appeared to be interested in a wide range of textual genres and forms. Despite recent interest in nineteenth-century Indian printing industries and their consumers, attention has been primarily focused on the production and reception of vernacular literatures. This article looks at the people, processes, and texts which constituted the Persian lithographic industry in mid-nineteenth century North India, focusing in particular on the role played by publishers in carving out identities as transmitters of texts. It argues that even as publishers sought to reach new readers and wider markets, they did so by drawing these groups into the existing ethos and hierarchies governing Persianate knowledge, rather than expressing a break from it.
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