This study uses information gleaned from the front matter, or preliminaries, of Spanish
Golden Age texts to model the social networks underpinning the early modern publication
industry. Using a data-driven approach, we examine the historical and political conditions
that influenced the process of approval, censorship, and publication in the Spanish Empire,
with a particular focus on the concept of geography, as it relates to the process of community
formation and composition. We find that the literary publishing scene was dominated by a …