An Early London Printing House at Work: Studies in the Bowyer Ledgers : With a Supplement to the Bowyer Ornament Stock (1973, An Appendix on the Bo) [illustrated] 9780914930167, 0914930168

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An Early London Printing House at Work: Studies in the Bowyer Ledgers

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KEITH MASLEN

An Early London Printing House at Work: Studies in the Bowyer Ledgers With a supplement to The Bowyer Ornament Stock (1973),

an appendix on the Bowyer-Emonson partnership, and ‘Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger’, by Herbert Davis

1993 |

NEW YORK

& THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA @

New material copyright © 1993 by Keith Maslen Copyright information for reprinted articles is given on the first page of each article.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maslen, K. I. D. An early London printing-house at work : studies in the Bowyer ledgers : with a supplement to the Bowyer ornament stock (1973), an appendix on the EmonsonBowyer partnership, and Bowyer’s Paper stock ledger, by Herbert Davis / Keith Maslen.

p- cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-914930-16-8 1. Bowyer, William, 1663-1737. 2. Bowyer, William, 1699-1777. 3. Printing — England—London—History—18th century. I. ‘Title.

686.2°0942—dc20 93-7766

2£232.B79M39 1993

Contents Tntroduction ...........ccccsssssccceccessesnncecccceecessssecececeeecesessseneeeeeseeessesseaeeseeeeeesssseeee VIL

Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger, dy HERBERT DAVIS .......ccceseecsesesessseeeeeseeeeeeee The Printers of Robinson Crusoe ..ccccccsscccsssceessssceeseceeseessceceeneeceesnetesteceeteesens IJ

Three Eighteenth-Century Reprints of the Castrated Sheets in Holinshed’s CAronicles .......ssccesscsesseceseeessecesseceseeesseceseecssseessssssseessesessae 27

Some Early Editions of Voltaire Printed in London .00.... eee eeeeeeeseeeee 33 Review of: D. F. McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712 .......... 41 | New Editions of Pope’s Essay 0 Man 1745-48 .....sccccsssssssssessssssssssssssessesseseses 45 Point-Holes as Bibliographical Evidence ...........cccssssssssessseessesesseeeseeeseeeesnees 55 Edition Quantities for Robinson Crusoe, V719 .......:::ecccceeeessssnecceeeteesessscceeeeeees 57 ‘Drawing Poor Robin’ ou... eee eeeeeseeeeseeesseeceseeececessseecesseeessseesssetessesesseeees 03 ‘Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 .........scccssssccceeescecesseceeessececeeeteeeesseceeeeseees OF

The Printing of the Votes of the House of Commons 1730-1781...........0+:00088 73 William Strahan at the Bowyer Press 1736-8 ...........:sccesseeceeseeeeseeesseeeeeseeees BQ

Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence... eeseeeeeeessseceeeeseeeesessseeees QL

Printing for the Author: From the Bowyer Printing Ledgers, 1710-1775 ....... 97 Masters and Men uu... cccccccssssssssssnccceccecceessessssseceneececceeseeesessssseseneseeeeees LOS

Bowyer’s Chapel Rules 0.0.0... eee eeceeessesecceeeeessseeeeecssseeeeessesssssesesessssseeeees 123

Seven Years Editing the Bowyer Ledgers 000.0... eeeeeseeseeeseesseeeseeeseeesseessee 127

Jobbing Printing and the Bibliographer: New Evidence from the Bowyer Ledgers.........eeeecessscceeessececesseeecesseessesssecessseescsssseesesssseesseeees 139

Shared Printing and the Bibliographer: New Evidence from the Bowyer Press .0........cesssccecesssssecceeeeessesecesessssseecessssssssessssssssssssssessssseseses 153

Parson Lister’s Library .............seeseccesesseceeeseceesesseceesessescessceesessssessssseseesseees 105

The Bowyer Ledgers: Their Historical Importance ........ eee eee eeseeeeeseeeeees L8I The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect ..........eesceessceesseeeeeeeeseeeeseee 189

Slaves or Freemen? The Case of William Bowyer, Father and Son, Printers Of London, 1699-1777 .........ssccesscecesseeeeeseeeesseeeessseessseesessseseeses 203

An Editorial Impasse: ‘The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Printer’s Notebook .... 213 George Faulkner and William Bowyer: The London Connection .............. 223 A Supplement to The Bowyer Ornament StocR ......ccccsscesccessseeseeeseeeseteseessetseee 235

APPENDIX: Bowyer’s Partnership with Emonson, 1o October 1754Tindex ....cecccccccccccccsecccececcccecececcecceeececeeesucueasceeaeseeeeeesesesssssssssssssssssssssssssssessseses 24Q

Vv

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& Introduction HIS volume contains 29 studies in the eighteenth-century London book trade, | centering on the work of two of its leading members, the printers William Bowyer, father and son. Twenty-seven pieces are reprinted from publications issued over a period of more than forty years from places as far removed as Cambridge (East Anglia), Charlottesville (Virginia), Canberra (Australian Capital Territory), and Dunedin (Otago). All but the first are my own work. Arising out of a prolonged concentration on a great new scholarly resource, these particular pieces may be regarded as parerga, or outworks, leading to the massive edifice of the Maslen-Lancaster edition of the Bowyer ledgers. ‘The scope of this work, published in 1991 by the Bibliographical Society of America and the Bibliographical Society (London), also available from Oxford University Press, may be suggested by the 5179 items of its ‘Checklist of Bowyer printing, 1710-1777’, and the 136 double-column pages of its ‘Index of Names and Titles’. The ‘Introductory Commentary to The Bowyer Ledgers, confronting the ledgers as a comprehensive record of seventy years of pro-_ ductivity, and guiding the reader through their complexity, resists many temptations to the detailed elaboration of particular points. Instead, invitations to further inquiry are provided in the ‘Checklist’ and indexes, and, where appropriate, readers are directed to

already published investigations, including many of my own, now conveniently brought together. This collection reprints articles published prior to publication of the edition of the Bowyer ledgers, as well as four since published. In addition, a ‘Supplement’ to my Bowyer Ornament Stock of 1973, presenting ornaments used early in the career of the older Bowyer or at the very end of the son’s life, is now published for the first time. Finally, a hitherto unpublished note on the younger Bowyer’s partnership with James Emonson, 1754-57, is given in the Appendix. The opportunity has been taken to supply whatever revision and updating seemed to be required. ‘This is presented in bracketed notes in the text, or in footnotes, as appropriate to the individual case, and is understandably more plentiful in the case of some of the older items. The series begins with Herbert Davis’s article on the paper stock ledger, which may be said to have begun the whole Bowyer enterprise in this century—for John Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes of 1812-16 and other works had been at it long ago. The occasion is therefore taken to say a little more about this pioneer paper by Davis. When on 14 April 1951 Herbert Davis reported on his preliminary investigation of the Bowyer paper stock ledger to a joint meeting in Oxford of the Bibliographical Society and the Oxford Bibliographical Society, he acknowledged that he was venturing on new and not altogether secure territory. Had not Fredson Bowers in his Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949) recently proclaimed the book to be the proper study of the analytical bibliographer, and the ‘collateral evidence’ of publisher’s records

and the like to be by implication of subordinate value? Davis, the editor of Swift, applying his own milder brand of irony, began by apologising for his choice of a topic vil

Vii Introduction ‘not in the purest and strictest sense of the word “bibliographical” at all’ (p. 73 {p. 1 below}). However Davis, while admitting the bibliographical imperfections of the surviving printer's own record (since then considerably enlarged by the discovery in the Library of the Grolier Club of New York of complementary Bowyer ledgers), had no serious doubt that the paper stock ledger was of potentially great bibliographical interest, and not only to himself as an editor of Pope and Swift. His purpose in speaking was to open up investigation of this hitherto little regarded historical source, for the paper stock ledger had already been in the Bodleian Library for some twenty years. Appealing to a likely interest of some in his audience, he pointed out that the ledger offered ‘fresh amusement for the inveterate cancel-hunter’ (p. 78 {p. 6 below}). (I recall that R. W. Chapman, author of Cance/s, and later an examiner of my B. Litt. thesis on the paper stock ledger, was present.) However Davis’s lightness of tone should not be misconstrued. The Reader in Textual Criticism at the University of Oxford and editor-to-be of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing, had a firm sense of the importance to an editor of learning from whatever source the precise nature of the influences working on the embryo book as it gradually took complete shape during its time in the printing-house. He noticed, for instance, the copious ledger evidence for divided (or shared) printing (p. 81 {p. 8 below}), a practice fraught with textual consequences still not adequately explored, despite important work by Peter Blayney on the early seventeenth century London printer Nicholas Okes (see below, pp. 155-56), and my own discussion in ‘Shared printing and the bibliographer—-see below, pp. 153-64. Davis equally farsightedly pointed to the quantities of jobbing printing produced by the Bowyers (and arguably by other printers of the time) of notoriously ephemeral things inevitably under-represented in modern repositories and in the files of the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue.

Davis’s final request ‘to hear from those who have had occasion to use records of this kind what method they would suggest to extract out of such crude and often unreliable accounts what information they contain that might be of value’ was characteristically unassuming. In fact, Herbert had already encouraged me to set systematically to work on the paper stock ledger, and I, who had been taught by him to engage in the delightful labours of bibliographical analysis and description after the school of Greg and Bowers, quickly came to share his conviction that this hitherto neglected class of material might be made to shed invaluable new light on authorship, book production and distribution in eighteenth-century London, the centre of the British book trade. By April 1951 I had already begun to identify the works whose printing was recorded in the ledger between the years 1713 and 1765, listing them both alphabetically and chrono-

logically. In order to confirm that the printed artifacts I found were indeed those whose printing and publication histories were documented in the paper stock ledger, I compiled a corpus of the printer's ornaments used by the Bowyers during this period. This was published in 1973 by the Oxford Bibliographical Society as The Bowyer Ornament Stock, the one published work of mine on the printing of the Bowyers not included in this volume. My next step was to record (by serial number) their appearance in every book I examined, as an essential part of the bibliographical description. This information was put in my thesis for those works | was then able to see for the years 1713-65, but

Introduction 1X it is not included in the very much larger edition of 1991. Here was method enough to

see me through my immediate task. My growing understanding of the ledger and developing eye for Bowyer ornaments and type faces soon enabled me to solve one of the particular problems referred to by Davis, the shared printing of early editions of Robinson Crusoe—see pp. 17-25 below. This was the first of many articles and notes offered not only for themselves, but in order to draw attention to the Bowyer archive, grown after 1963 with the discovery of other ledgers in the Library of the Grolier Club of New York.

These by-works, so to speak, grew out of my long-continued effort to come to terms with a new kind of historical evidence and so make it accessible to scholars of every description. Their purpose was to solve particular problems or throw light on darker parts of the ledger record entered during the systematic work of editing. Some inquired into the working habits of compositors and pressmen, and the master’s conduct of his business; others focussed on particular works or groups of works (for instance those by Voltaire with misleading foreign imprints), or on the distinction of impressions and editions, and the reckoning of edition quantities, in respect of such notable authors as Berkeley, Defoe, Gay, Pope, and Swift. The detection of shared printing prompted inquiries into the careers of other London printers, including Samuel Aris, William Botham (whose initials W. B. were identical to those used in imprints by the elder Bowyer), Henry Parker, Samuel Richardson, and William Strahan. Investigation of retail subscription editions prompted a study of self-publishing (‘Printing for the author’), while the elder Bowyer’s sale of books, pamphlets, and newspapers resulted in discussion of the book buying (and reading) of a country parson in Essex. The variety is considerable. However, now that these individual pieces are put together, wider issues can be seen to emerge. These have to do with the work of a major London printing-house over almost three-quarters of a century, in its internal operation, in its manifold relations with the trade in London, and beyond, and with society at large, represented by some hundreds of authors, and a much greater number of private customers (buyers, and hence readers). ‘The provision of an index opens up the full extent of subject matter discussed in the course of articles ostensibly devoted to often quite narrow topics. (One disadvantage of the periodical article lies in the potential reader’s difficulty of learning from a title cited in a bibliographical reference, or even from an abstract, what range of topics and perceptions may be canvassed.) Ultimately, the value of the Bowyer ledgers as a scholarly resource will be measured less by their sheer bulk, as by the range and kind of insights they may be induced to yield. As we look forward to the larger syntheses promised by the forthcoming ‘History of the Book in Britain’, particular interrogations such as these both of books and allied documentation would seem to have an increasing value. Large ideas, however derived (often prompted by thinking in literary theory or beyond in social anthropology) can bear good fruit only when developed with a careful sense of the ground under discussion. ] am always pleased to see new work which builds on mine; I shall be perhaps even more gratified by studies which surprise by taking unexpected yet profitable initiatives.

x Introduction EDITORIAL NOTE

Annotations, additions, and emendations throughout are indicated by curly braces {thus}; corrections of typographical errors (e.g. ‘British’ for “Britsih’) have been made silently. Bibliographical references have also been silently made more uniform in style throughout the volume. Many references are made to The Bowyer Ledgers: The printing accounts of Wilham Bowyer father and son reproduced on microfiche with a checklist of Bowyer printing 16991777, a commentary, indexes, and appendixes, edited by Keith Maslen and John Lancaster. London: The Bibliographical Society; New York: The Bibliographical Society of Ame-

rica, 1991. Reference to the whole work is made as ‘The Bowyer Ledgers’; ‘Checklist’ alone refers to the checklist that forms the core of that work. ERRATA TO Lhe Bowyer Ledgers

2194: For ‘1174-5) read ‘1484-5’. 2198: For ‘11463-4' read ‘1463-4’.

4369: Add to ledger references: P1174. p. 504: Under ‘Delaney, Patrick | — [ed.]’: italicize “The tribune’. p- 563: Reverse the order of entries “The protestant Englishman’ and “The protestant dissenter .

p. 586: Entries for “T'ooke/Took, Benjamin’ should precede “Tooke, Samuel’. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the original publishers of each of the articles reprinted herein; the details are given in a note on the first page of each essay. Hugh Amory of the Houghton Library, Harvard University,O M Brack, Jr., of Arizona State University, Mirjam Foot of the British Library, Vincent Kinane of Trinity College Library, Dublin, and Brian McMullin of Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, were especially helpful as deadlines drew near. I especially thank John Lancaster, whose great skill as an editor and intimate knowledge of the field have once again come to my aid, this time to assemble my pieces into a pleasing and manageable whole. In 1965 D. F. McKenzie printed at the Wai-Ie-Ata Press, Wellington, New Zealand, and privately circulated his paper on work patterns at the Cambridge University Press in the early 1700s under the title ‘An Early Printing House at Work: Some Notes for Bibliographers’. At his suggestion his title has been adapted to this larger use. A NOTE ON THE TYPE, COMPOSITION, AND PRINTING

The type is Adobe Caslon, a computer revival designed by Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems, Inc., of the original type used by the Bowyers (including such features as swash capitals and long-s ligatures). ‘The book was designed and composed by John Lancaster using Aldus PageMaker, version 4.0, under Microsoft Windows; cameraready copy was output from a Linotronic 330 at 2540 dpi by Cleare Communications, Inc., Northampton, Massachusetts. Printing (by offset on Finch Opaque 60 |b. text paper) and binding were done by Braun-Brumfield, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan.

& Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger by HERBERT Davis N such a special occasion as this, Sir, at this joint meeting of the two Societies, it

() would have been more fitting to have arranged for some important pronounce-

ment from one of our venerable elders or to have had a paper read by a learned librarian or bookseller or printer, whose professional experience enables him to speak with authority on matters with which these Societies are concerned. I know that the Hon. Secretary had it in mind that it would be profitable for the Societies to discuss again the controversial topic of ‘Bibliographical Description’; but that we may perhaps now postpone until we hear more from the Societies in America who have given so much attention to it, or until we have a visit from Professor Fredson Bowers. Meantime I have ventured to choose a topic for my paper today ‘Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger, which I fear is not in the purest and strictest sense of the word ‘bibliographical’ at all. Let me make this quite clear, in order to avoid contributing to that—I quote Professor Bowers— more subtle source of confusion—extending even among bibliographers—[which] results from a mode of thinking which fails to distinguish what are the facts which are the province of analytical bibliography and its methods, and the facts which are collateral in their nature.

He then proceeds to give some examples: The entrance of a book in the Stationers’ Register under the name of an author or public advertisement of the book as his, is in a collateral sense a bibliographical fact, but it is not a fact in the analytical sense. Except in very special circumstances no examination of the book as a material object can prove the truth or falsehood of such statements; hence they are not truly bibliographical because they cannot be demonstrated by bibliographical methods. This principle must hold for all publishers’ records and other forms of collateral evidence.1

I wish it to be understood from the outset that I shall be dealing with collateral evidence, with facts which ‘are bibliographical by courtesy only’. I am not apologizing for this. I confess that I find some satisfaction in being able to dispense with conjectural theories and even to turn away from the delights of the most subtle bibliographical analysis, because of the evidence provided by an account book, which states exactly how many reams of paper were used, how many sheets were printed, and how many copies of these sheets, and how much additional paper was required for cancels or fresh titles or to replace sheets which had been spoiled by the accidents of the printing-house. 1. Principles of Bibliographical Description, 1949, pp. 32-33.

A paper read at a joint meeting of the Bibliographical Society and the Oxford Bibliographical Society at Oxford on 14 April 1951. Originally published in The Library, v, 6 (1951), 73-87. Copyright © 1951 The Bibliographical Society.

Reprinted by permission.

I

2 Herbert Davis | Indeed my only objection to the subject I have chosen is that these accounts are so badly kept, so inaccurate and incomplete, that only very occasionally do they provide the full story that they might be expected to give. Usually a good deal of further investigation is necessary and a careful examination of the books themselves, before we can make use of the facts here recorded with any confidence. These accounts were kept by the press warehouseman for his own purposes—and not unfortunately to provide us with whatever information we are looking for. And alas he was entirely ignorant of all the principles of bibliographical description; he has his own peculiar, informal, and intimate way of recording, for instance, the titles of the volumes he is dealing with. He talks familiarly of Mr. Castiglione’s Courtier, not with reference to the noble author,

but because the account of the paper for the reprint is entered to Mr. A. P. Castiglione—a descendant of the family—who was editing and printing it by subscription. He is often content with a sort of code name for the job; he is not careful to mention the size, or the particular edition, or even the volume. But, with all its deficiencies, it affords us fascinating glimpses of what was going on in the Bowyers’ printing-house over a period of fifty-seven years, from the first careful entry in 1717 to the last scraps which belong to the year 1773.

The Ledger was begun by William Bowyer the elder, who you will remember set up as a printer in 1699 at the Whitehorse in Little Britain, where after the disastrous fire of 1713 he returned in the following October, and soon recovered from all his losses. In 1717 his son was still at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he stayed until 1722, and then joined the firm as corrector of the press, beginning work on Wilkins’s edition of Selden. He took over the business on the death of his father in 1737, and soon gained a reputation for being a most successful and, perhaps, the most learned, printer in Lon-

don: in 1729 appointed to print the Votes of the House of Commons; the next year printer to the Society of Antiquaries; in 1761, on the death of Richardson, printer to the Royal Society. He completed the Rol/s of Parliament in 6 volumes, the Journals of the House of Lords in 31 volumes, and his edition of the Domesday Book was in the press when he died in 1777. During the last ten years of his life he was in partnership with John Nichols, his worthy successor and biographer. The accounts were kept in a large folio ledger,? bound in calf, containing at the beginning 27 unnumbered leaves, of which 24 were used for an index, followed by 289 numbered leaves. The main accounts end on folio 211, but there are a few jottings on

the last pages. The paper is ruled horizontally in red, with ledger lines for doublecolumn accounts. Usually the amount of the paper received for a particular job is entered on the left, with the dates, sometimes covering many months, when each delivery took place. The total received is added up, and the amount actually used, with the balance to be returned or carried over to the account of another book. On the right is entered first the

number of copies to be printed, large and small, or fine and coarse, and then in the column immediately beneath a detailed account of the numbers delivered at the time of 2. Now in the Bodleian: MS. don. b. 4. {This description of the ledger is superseded by that given in The Bowyer Ledgers (‘Introductory Commentary’, section IV, pp. Lxxii-lxxiii).} 3. See account of “The Warehouse-book’ in The Printers’ Manual by C. H. Timperley, 1838, p. 87.

Bowyer’ Paper Stock Ledger 3 printing or at subsequent dates to the different publishers or booksellers, or to the author or the binder as the case may be. In the earlier accounts there is no reference to anything but sheets, but in the later years there are also accounts of books printed for subscribers or published by Bowyer himself, which refer to bound and unbound copies; and there is one interesting account of Berkeley’s Siris (4th ed.), in 1746, giving particulars of the several parcels sent to {Mrs.} Cooper between 14 April and the following February, some being ‘sewed’, some ‘in sheets’, and some ‘in blew Covers’. The Ledger was intended to provide a record of the stock of paper, ordered separately for each job, and supposed to balance with the amount of printed sheets, which in due course left the warehouse. It was not an account reckoned in £ s. d. I have not heard of any other account of this kind belonging to the eighteenth century; and I am told that it is unlikely that they would be kept except in a very large printing business. Mr. Philip kindly drew my attention to an item in the First Minute Book of the Delegates of the Oxford University Press, 1668-1756,* of particular interest as it dates from the same year in which Bowyer began this ledger. 1717 Agreed that Stephen Richardson [Press warehouse-keeper] should keep a Book or part of a Book in which he should write down on one side what paper he receives from time to time of the Stationer for y* use of the University, And on y* other side what paper he hath used & how it has been used.

No one knows of the existence of such an account, and it is possible that the record was

never actually kept. The method here suggested is not quite the same as most of the entries in Bowyer’s Ledger; but there are two separate accounts of paper stocks, evidently a sort of permanent supply for general use with a separate column for each size, the amount purchased and used. I may here note that most of the paper seems to have come from Holland and the following grades or sizes are specified: Writing Royal, Second Royal, Demy, Foolscap, Crown, and Pott. It was at first chiefly obtained from three leading stationers, Thomas Brewer, of Ludgate Hill, Master of the Company in 1745; Samuel Hoole, at the Crown,

next Ludgate Church; Samuel Sheafe, of Bread Street—all of whom had subscribed generously to Bowyer’s Relief Fund, after the great fire which destroyed his establishment in January 1713; none of the paper-makers are mentioned, but the names of printsellers like John Bowles & Son and E. Johnson & Co., both of Ludgate Hill, also appear in the accounts. Paper was then usually supplied—as Mr. 8. Gibson points out in his account of Viner’s General Abridgement of Law && Equity’—with two extra broken

quires of 20 sheets to each ream. The accounts are worked out on the basis of 500 good sheets to a ream but there was usually enough for a few extra copies. But this entry in the Minute Book is valuable as indicating who it was who kept these accounts. They were evidently kept in turn by Bowyer’s press warehousemen, though the worst of the later entries must have been entrusted to some ‘blackguard boy’ who could neither write nor spell, and who dirties up a number of pages with an unnecessary amount of ink. At first the accounts were kept neatly and accurately, each sepa4. Oxford Bibliographical Society, Extra Publication, 1943, 47. 5. Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, ii, 236.

A Herbert Davis rate title being entered at the top of the left-hand page of an opening, and each opening being numbered so that the entries could be immediately noted in the index. The account opens very propitiously with a book of which Bowyer had every reason to be proud—Maittaire’s Lives of the Paris Printers, 1717, for Mr. Bateman. Nichols quotes the compliment to the printer and his press corrector in the preface: ‘the printers of whom this volume gives an account have found a printer worthy of them’—for the volume is not only accurately but elegantly printed; the copies I have seen still look extremely fresh, and it is particularly valuable because of the large number of excellent examples of the new ornaments which Bowyer had had engraved with symbols such as the phoenix and the rising sun to signalize his emergence from the fire. ‘The entry in the ledger is set out thus: 1717

Lives of the Paris Printers by M’ Maittaire for M* Bateman Ne

Q. Books dd fine _24 _ 250 _

May 6 Recd of M'’ Bloss ins:24 0:12 Royal 8 — ins:25 Books Books

Aug6 more O: 12 8 — Sept 7 Dd to M* Bateman fine 4 ord 12 recd in all I: 4 16 — M’ Maittaire in time of

used for22ShS N° 24 1:4 £43x&0°f I printing I & I remains nn a JanY¥1 to M’ Bateman 18

Sept 7 dd to M' Bateman 4 5 2 toandM' Bateman 236 Waste In such an account we get some definite and important information—and only one little problem. We are told exactly the number of copies to be printed on fine or ordinary paper, the time of printing between 6 August and 7 September, and the date of the final delivery of all the copies almost four months later. ‘They were evidently not required for Christmas sales, but seem to have been kept back until after the holiday. The Christmas season is often spoken of as a dead season for trade in eighteenth-century London. It is rather a bad omen that this very first account does not quite balance—the numbers of books not added up, in both fine and ordinary are one copy short; and no information is provided about the 4 quires that were left over and not returned to Mr. Bateman. I can only suggest that they may have somehow found their way into that extravagantly interleaved copy which was given by the author to Thomas Rawlinson, who had it bound in green vellum and embedded its 320 pages among 86 sheets of blank paper in 3 stout volumes. It is now in the Bodleian and contains a few corrections and additions entered here and there on those handsome blank leaves. The account of the Duke of Buckingham’s Poems {i.e., The works, 1723} printed for Mr. Barber, though the number of copies is again wrongly added up, seems to promise

some fresh light on the publication of that dangerous work. A note that one copy was sent to Mr. Pope in time of printing may be some further evidence of his responsibility for the volume, which because of the Jacobitism of two of the prose pieces was immedi+ {The transcription has been corrected, removing the “R’ (for ‘Reams’) that had been wrongly inserted over the entire account for paper of unspecified quality and placing the ‘Q’ (for ‘Quires’) accurately

over the ‘quires’ portion of the Royal paper account. In the text, Davis correctly notes that two sorts of paper were used, each being reckoned in terms of reams and quires. See ledger P872 and Checklist 407. The details of the transcription have been refined slightly.}

Bowyer'’s Paper Stock Ledger 5 ately seized after publication. The 100 copies printed on Superfine Writing Royal were all delivered to Mr. Tonson, and presumably distributed a month before the ordinary

edition was published. It is curious that after the main stock of the paper had been accumulated from Hoole and Brewer, Barber supplied more just before printing. But the real problem, and I describe this as an example of the sort of thing that occurs throughout, is how much of the two volumes did Bowyer print. The amount of paper received would be enough for just under 65 sheets, exactly in the right proportion for the fine and the ordinary copies. But vol. i, which has Bowyer’s ornaments throughout on every sheet, consists of only 57 sheets, with the preliminary material in two states, some copies having an engraved portrait and a half-sheet containing dedication and title, others a whole sheet containing the licence, half-title, title, and dedication. The imprints of the original and cancelled title-pages for both volumes are equally misleading. For at first it was ‘Printed by JOHN BARBER, Alderman of London, mdccxxiii. —then it was changed to ‘Printed for JOHN BARBER, and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1723. When the 6% sheets of the offending passages in vol. li were confiscated, these sheets were afterwards reprinted (on a different paper) and the books issued complete in 1724. But it is unlikely that Bowyer had anything to do with this, as the warehouseman seems to have closed his account before the original date of publication when he had delivered all his copies. And I cannot make his account balance any more than he could. {The problem is cleared up by ledger A. Volume 1 in fact consists, not of 57 sheets, as Davis states, but 59, which is the number Bowyer charges for. See ledger A242-3 and Checklist 898. The printer’s note on A243 records that another 5 reams 18 quires were used to perfect, and this extra paper neatly balances the paper account.} Sometimes we get a little special information which balances the account neatly, e.g. for the second volume of Shenstone’s Works (and ed.) for Dodsley, in 1765, of which 1,500 copies were printed. In November and December 66 reams and 17 quires were received from Simmons, of which the 66 reams were used for the 22 sheets. But here we know what happened to the rest: the 17 quires and 15 more ordered later were sent to Lewis, the copperplate printer, for the plan of Leasowes, which is a folded half-sheet, and would therefore just use up these 32 quires. Sometimes the accounts provide indications of changes in the make-up of a volume

during the time of printing. Another volume for Mr. Dodsley was undertaken in 1761—Sheridan’s Dissertation on the Causes of the Difficulties which occur in learning the

English Tongue. On 24 October 5 quires of Writing Royal and 5 reams of Demy were received from Johnson to print 25 fine and 475 coarse copies. This was used to print 5 sheets and the 5 quires of Demy remaining were duly returned in January 1762. Then later, the date is not given, more paper was obtained which was used for 114 sheets and title. Finally ‘for the Title cancelled a second time’, 24% quires were used of ‘Masters Demy of Italian Grammar’. {This quotation (abbreviations expanded by Davis) from P1174 refers to David Lates, A new method of easily attaining the Italian tongue (Checklist 4369). This entry at the foot of P1174, not indexed in The Bowyer Ledgers, is repeated on Prr8r in the form ‘1762 Mar 2 Used for 250 titles of Sheridan 2% [quires]’.}

6 Herbert Davis Here of course is a good example of collateral evidence which provides facts which could not have been obtained from bibliographical analysis. I do not think they have any importance bibliographically or textually; they probably belong rather in the category of what Nichols used to call bibliomaniacal anecdote. The text was first printed on

4¥2 sheets with the remaining half-sheet for title and preliminaries. Then Sheridan decided to add his ‘Dedication addressed to a certain Noble Lord’, which meant a new title-page and an additional sheet and a half. I do not know what was the reason for the second cancellation of the title unless it had something to do with the Erratum, which is printed on the verso of the cancel title. Nichols does not consider this volume worthy of mention among the volumes printed by Bowyer in 1762; and I have not found any further information to confirm what seems to be the evidence of the Ledger. Perhaps one of the most interesting of the smaller matters for which it provides information not available elsewhere is the evidence for cancels. Indeed it offers fresh amusement for the inveterate cancel-hunter, because the press warehouseman is only concerned with the amount of extra paper required. If it is for a title-page this is usually stated, but otherwise he is content to add simply: ‘For a sheet of Canc“. leaves 2 Reams’ or sometimes more vaguely as in Wallis’s English Grammar for Mr. Millar published in 1765:

The cancd. Leafs were bo‘ by Mr. Bowyer, who was paid again by Mr. Hollis for them

This project of reprinting an English Grammar written in Latin for the benefit of foreigners, particularly in Italy and Spain, who might thus ‘attain to a knowledge of English, and need no longer have recourse to the treacherous aids of French translations’, was due to the munificent Mr. Hollis, and Bowyer himself wrote a preface in English, from which I have just quoted, and a preface in Latin, which was the one printed. There are many such references to cancels in the Ledger. ‘Used for 4 pages canc®”’ 3

quires; or sheet I in vol. 1 of Fugitive Pieces for Mr. Dodsley, cancelled on account of being mildewed. An additional half-ream was needed for this, which must mean that 250 out of the total 1,000 copies were affected. Sometimes as much as an additional 20 per cent was required for cancels. A sermon of the Bishop of Chichester of only 3 sheets was printed on 28 May 1759 in a small edition of 200 copies, about 25 quires of paper; here 6 additional quires were used first for a half-sheet and then for a quartersheet cancelled. I should particularly like to see a copy with the uncancelled sheets, if such exists, of Gilbert West’s edition of Pindar, with the prefatory “Dissertation on the Olympick Games’, and other translations in prose and verse, making a handsome quarto of 70 sheets, of which 750 copies were printed in 1749. After this was completed 15 sheets were cancelled and an additional 2214 reams were required to replace these sheets in the whole impression. I have not been able to find out why these were cancelled; but there is no doubt that the section cancelled must have been sheets A-O, containing the translation of the odes and perhaps sheet R containing the title-page and advertisement to Iphigenia in Tauris, as the paper for these sheets in the copies I have seen has a fleur-de-

Bowyer’ Paper Stock Ledger 7 lis and a crown water-mark (not in Heawood), whereas all the other sheets used were unmarked. There is one reference to a cancelled sheet which we have no difficulty in finding, for it occurs in Warburton’s Doctrine of Grace, of which Bowyer printed 1,000 copies for Millar and Tonson in 1762. An extra two reams were required for a sheet of cancelled leaves. ‘These particular cancels are referred to in a delightful letter of Bowyer’s to the bishop, which he was too kind or too prudent to send. He nevertheless preserved it, and Nichols duly printed it. It throws a pleasant light on the character of the two men; it also shows how ready a good eighteenth-century printer was to correct his mistakes by the use of cancels. Bowyer was naturally annoyed when, after having a lot of trouble with the first edition, the second edition was given to another printer: Your Lordship will say you removed your Book to another Printer, because I had printed the first edition of it very incorrectly. I answer, my Lord, that you saw every proof-sheet yourself, and ought to share with me at least in the imputation of incorrectness. You said indeed, at first setting out, that you would not be my Corrector; but then, my Lord, you should not be your own. When sheets are hurried away to an impatient Author late at night by the post, the Printer is precluded from reviewing them with that accuracy he otherwise should bestow upon them. In the canceled Leaves which your Lordship complains of, there were no less than six faults in one page, viz. p. 151; only one of which, upon the return of the sheet, was corrected by your Lordship, the others being left for me to discover.

Then he discusses two readings which he had allowed to remain, which the Bishop had complained of, and finally with some dignity declares that he will not be ready to accept the office of being printer to his Lordship again.® I shall refer to only one more cancelled sheet which occurs in an account for 1,000 copies of Hasselquist’s Travels to the East, printed for Davis and Reymers in 1766— which presents a number of fresh problems. The dates are curious. Most of the paper was received by 6 June, and 6 copies of the printed sheets were sent to the publisher on 28 June, 4 more being also entered as delivered during the time of printing. But it was

not till six months later that of the 1,000 copies printed the first parcel of 200 was delivered—at the end of December. But the account of the paper used indicates that something had been happening in the meantime. Two reams were used for ‘A Sh Canc®’, and there follows this item which occurs nowhere else in the book: Nov. 26 D¢ the Heap of the Canc‘ Sh

I had wondered what happened to the discarded cancelled sheets, when, as we have seen in some cases, they must have made a very large heap of paper; but this is the only

time that it is stated that the heap was delivered to the publisher, unless we are to assume that such sheets of cancelled leaves were included in the “Waste’, which is generally sent along with the last delivery. But there is another revealing item in the details

provided of the paper used. For the thousand copies 1 ream was used—no paper is specified in this case—for the half-sheet of the title, and 33/2 reams for 16% sheets. But 6. See Nichols, Anecdotes, 11. 385.

8 Herbert Davis when we examine the volume we find it consists of 26 sheets; so that it was evidently divided among two printers, though it was not a large edition, nor a big book, nor, as far as we can see, needed in a hurry. It is easy to find the division, as, after the first 16 sheets of the text, there comes a half-sheet with signature 5+, followed by a quarter-sheet, T?. Then, with 4 pages missing, a fresh signature T’, and an obvious change in typography with a much freer use of italic. Possibly the cancelled sheet referred to was the original full sheet S, which was for some reason replaced by the three-quarter sheet, thus leaving a break before the new sheet where the other printer’s section begins.

This is a good example of one of the chief deficiencies in the way in which these accounts are kept. The press warehouseman might of course not even know that the paper used and the sheets printed were for only a part of a volume; but whether he knew or not he rarely troubles in any way to indicate which particular section of a volume or

which part of a series of volumes his account refers to; and it is therefore necessary when, as frequently, he also does not give the number of the sheets, to calculate this for ourselves from the amount of paper used. But here again we are liable to run into difficulties. For instance, Bowyer undertook with the assistance of two other printers, Samuel Palmer and Thomas Wood, the magnificent folio edition of Selden’s Works, edited by Bishop Wilkins. It is often referred to as one of the first books printed in the new Caslon type,’ 100 copies in Royal and 650 in Demy, begun in 1722 and finished in 1726. ‘The account is headed with unusual care ‘Vol. I for Partners’, but the amount of the paper received over three years is not added up and the number of sheets printed is not specified. Here all collateral evidence we might hope for is missing, and we have to rely upon an examination of the volumes themselves to discover that Bowyer also printed the latter part of vol. 11 from sheet 9H to the end, which can be proved by the fact

that his ornaments are used on these sheets. {The missing evidence is supplied by ledger A, which notes that Bowyer printed part of volumes 1, 2, and also 3 of John Selden’s Opera omnia—see Checklist 1161.}

Perhaps the most valuable evidence provided by these accounts is the extent to which printing jobs were divided up among different houses. We knew of course from the title-pages that very large jobs still continued to be divided as they had been in the seventeenth century,® like the edition of Selden’s Works I have just referred to, or Rymer’s Foedera or Rapin’s History of England, in which case the account specifies the | actual sheets printed by Bowyer; and we knew that work done for the Stationers’ Company was divided among different firms. Nichols also speaks of Bowyer having printed parts of some editions of Robinson Crusoe? and of other popular works. Nevertheless J venture to think that the practice was much more widely spread and continued longer 7. The unpointed Hebrew fount was certainly cut by Caslon, but the roman and italic English, mentioned by Nichols and by E. R. Mores as also used in Selden, are certainly very different from the English in his later Specimens. See A Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Foundries by E. R. Mores, p. 97, and Nichols, Anecdotes, ii. 356. But see Updike, Printing Types, fig. 290. 8. Mr. Strickland Gibson has also reminded me of Kirkman’s The unlucky citizen (1673): ‘it hath been such an unlucky extravagant as to wander to four Printing houses.’ See Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications (New Ser.), I, fasc. ii, p. 57. g. See Anecdotes, 1. 180.

Bowyers Paper Stock Ledger 9 through the eighteenth century than most people have realized. And I note that Mr. Todd, the latest expert on press-figures and running titles, has made the same discovery by his elaborate analyses.1° Of these divided accounts I found most interesting the record of Bowyer’s part in printing almanacks for the Stationers’ Company from 1717 down to the early 1750s. He was allotted only one sheet from each of the three almanacks he had a part in—sheet B of Culpepper and The Ladies, and sheet A (printed on paper already stamped with the halfpenny stamp duty) for Poor Robin. While Culpepper remained fairly steady with a circulation of from 3,000 to 3,500, Poor Robin increased from 5,000 in the years before 1720 to 10,000 in 1733 and 12,000 in 1750. But The Ladies Diary: OR, The Woman's

ALMANACK, chiefly remarkable for the Enigmas and the advanced mathematical problems which it contained, more than doubled its circulation from 8,000 to over 16,000 by 1736 and to 18,000 in 1750. I can hardly attribute this to that extraordinary series of female portraits framed on the title-pages, nor to the various encircling verses, which finally settled down in the thirties and forties to this: 1. Hail! happy LADIES of the BRITISH Isle, On whom the GRACES and the MUSES smile. 2. LONG had your lovely Shape, and matchless Mien, The Wonder of the Neighb’ring Nations been; 3. NATURE to make your Triumph more complet, To peerless CHARMS has added piercing WIT.

4. NOmore let SCYTHIA vaunt her FEMALE-HOST, Nor their SEMIRAMIS, th’Assyrians boast: WIT join’d to BEAUTY, Fame shall now record, Which lead more Captive than the Conqu’ring Sword.

Unfortunately there is no account in the Ledger for any edition of Rodinson Crusoe, though a careful examination of the type and ornaments shows that Bowyer printed the last third (sheet T to the end) of the second edition and the middle section (H-S) of the third. {Ledger A records that Bowyer printed part of the ‘second’ and two ‘third’ editions. See below in this volume, “The printers of Robinson Crusoe’ (1952) and “Edition quantities for Robinson Crusoe’ (1969), and Checklist 556, 563, and 567.} But it will be noticed on the facsimile of f. 36” (Plate 1) that there is an account of ‘Mr. Gulliver’s Travells for Mr. Motte’; and this provides some fresh facts. Nichols is misleading in the Anecdotes, for he places among the books printed by Bowyer in 1726 Gulliver's Travels in 2 volumes. It is generally stated that 10,000 copies were printed before the end of the year, though it was not advertised as published till 26 October, and it is more

likely that it did not actually appear until the beginning of November. Sir Harold Williams has shown that three different editions were printed in November and December, and—using the methods of bibliographical analysis—had noted that ‘the later editions issued by Motte in 1726 bear every indication of having been handed to differ-

ent printing-houses and hurried through the press’. He also drew attention to the 10. Studies in Bibliography, ed. Fredson Bowers, 3 (1950-51), 180.

Herbert Davi

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Bowyers Paper Stock Ledger II difference of type used in the fourth part of the third edition, which he suggested was issued early in December 1726. ‘The account shows that Bowyer used 65 reams of Demy and printed 2,500 copies, which were delivered in parcels of 500 on 1 & g December, two on 18 December, and the rest in January. He could not have printed more than 13

sheets, which is exactly Part IV (sheets M-2A). The type and the figures for the page numbers are from a different fount from that used in the rest of the book, and the ornaments in these sheets are those regularly used by Bowyer at this time; I must not forget to add that an examination of the running titles and the press-figures indicates a separate printing. It is a little more difficult to prove just how much Bowyer ‘printed of the so called second corrected edition, which came out in 1727. But the dates when the paper was received in February and April and the delivery of the first 25 copies to Motte on 3 May show that it was finished in May, and 450 copies delivered to him before the end of the month. But the bulk of the sheets were not immediately needed, and the last 1,450 out of a total of 2,000 were not delivered until February 1728. Evidently the cheaper duodecimo, which had been issued in the meantime, a reprint of the third edition, was meeting the demand. For this second printing 93% reams of paper were used, enough for about 23 sheets of 2,000 copies. Vol. ii is again divided between the two printers, with separate signatures and pagination for each part. But the ornaments, though similar, are not Bowyer’s. In this edition he printed Part 1, the Voyage to Lilliput, and all the preliminaries, including the two extra leaves inserted in some copies before sheet A. For there is a note in the account that he delivered to Motte on 11 May ‘so00 copies of a quarter-sheet in verse to be annexed to Gulliver’. It is rather curious that no more were printed, as there would have been plenty of time to have included them in the remaining 1,450 copies which were not delivered until later. The next two accounts of Swift items printed in 1729 are unusually full and accurate; 1,000 copies of the Inze/ligencer, printed entirely by Bowyer, and 750 copies of the Drapier’s Letters, also printed in that year but dated 1730 on the title-page, although the first 100 copies were delivered on 30 October, 200 more on 1 November, and another 100 at the end of the month. But the demand was not very large in England as might

there were still over 100 left.

perhaps be expected, and the account ends with a last delivery of 25 copies in 1735, when

But before I go on to other notable books from Bowyer’s press contained in the accounts, I should like to return for a moment to this matter of dividing even small jobs between several different printers. For I think there is evidence that it was a device used

by the publishers to speed up the pace, to meet a large demand, or in some cases to bring a little pressure on the author. I do not know whether the publishers were able to keep down costs by playing off one printer against another, though there were frequent complaints from the trade that they were at the mercy of their authors and their publishers. In this connexion I should like to quote from a letter of 13 June 1765 from Bowyer to the Rev. Philip Morant, whose History of Essex he was then printing:

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Bowyers Paper Stock Ledger 13 J understand from Mr Davis that you complain of my Delay in the Volume of Essex, and that therefore he designs to put part of the second volume to another Printer; which is to begin with the Hist. of Colchester—You will be pleased to observe, that I stood still for Copy before the last Parcel came, & I suppose, if I had finished the preceding Copy ever so soon, this last Part would have been finished no sooner. This Mr Davis saies, is a Mistake, & that Authors write from Hand to Mouth only as fast as the Printers go on. To accelerate the Authors, therefore, more Printers must be employed. If so, I still say, if you send me up now the second Volume, I can go on with it as fast as if another Printer had it, by putting different Hands on it. If Colchester begins it, be pleased to send it up by the Carrier, and I will send you Proofs as fast as you will correct them, & not interrupt the first volume.

I am glad to say that the Rev. Morant in his reply not only insists that he would not like

the book to be printed by any other hand; he also makes it clear that he will not be hurried by Mr. Davis. I work at it about 7 hours a day, with very little interruption: But I do not choose to ruin my health, nor to sit up at nights, as I have formerly done. With God’s assistance I can furnish you with copy enough for 2 printed Sheets in a week, & can do no more.... I do not write from hand to mouth, but keep going on daily; & am very glad if I can distance you a little at any time. But I can’t be hurried; if I was so, my wife & daughter would soon pluck the pen out of my hand.

And he ends in sympathy with Bowyer: “We poor Authors and Printers are great Slaves. Dabit Deus his quoque finem.”!! It is clear that, in spite of the rapid increase in his business and the variety of his own interests as editor and a learned printer, Bowyer was unwilling to let anything in which he was himself interested be taken away from him. Only a few years before, in 1762, immediately upon the death of Samuel Richardson, he had applied to be allowed to take over the printing of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. ‘The exact

arrangements for the transfer are recorded in the Ledger. On 10 March 1762 he received from the executors of Richardson all the sheets from B to Aa inclusive of the First Part of vol. lit, which had already been printed at Richardson’s press, together with 37 reams of Crown paper, which with more received later were used for the remaining 30% sheets of this part, including the title and contents of the volume. Seven hundred and fifty copies of these volumes were printed, and the accounts of the paper received and used continue to be made up carefully for the succeeding volumes until the early seventies, when they begin to be neglected (see Plate 2). There are a number of other very important accounts carried on from year to year. For since 1729 the Bowyers had printed the Votes of the House of Commons, and in 1767 were appointed to print also the Journals of the House of Lords. And among such formidable and valuable accounts there appear also an extremely interesting variety of items, from the small matters of sermons, learned treatises, occasional verses sometimes in only 250 copies to the popular reprints of Robert Nelson’s pious manuals, Bishop Beveridge’s Private Thoughts, toth ed. in 1720, Wake’s Catechism, all printed in 4,000 or 5,000 copies. And here also are to be found the great names of the period—Locke and u. B.M. Add. MSS. 34650 (11).

14 Herbert Davis Newton, Swift and Pope and Gay, Fielding and Sterne, and even James Boswell represented by the earliest of his acknowledged publications, The Cub at Newmarket, printed in a small edition of 250 copies for Mr. Dodsley. It may seem strange to you that I have been so long in coming to what should prove of the greatest general interest in the accounts found in the Ledger. But unfortunately it is some of these accounts which are most inadequate, and provide little new information. I have naturally gone through very carefully the many columns devoted to the increasing numbers of volumes of Swift’s Miscellanies and later of the Collected Works, the seventh quarto volume of which was edited, as well as printed, by Bowyer. These miscellanies in duodecimo were usually printed in 1,500 copies, and the exact date at which they appeared is not of much importance nor even the fact that for some reason extra paper was required to reprint two leaves or three titles. There are some details of the parts printed by Bowyer for Bathurst—the complete London edition in quarto and octavo, and later reprinted in a smaller octavo; but the most interesting account includes some actual costs. This was for the two octavo volumes, edited and printed by Bowyer—vols. xiii and xiv, the same as the seventh volume, quarto. These two volumes consisted of 3334 sheets for which 135 reams of Crown paper were used at a cost of £70.17s.6d. A single book in sheets sold at 35.6d. and the partners were supplied at the rate of 1 guinea for 6, 2 guineas for 13, and 4 guineas for 26 copies. Sewing cost a penny a volume. Many of the Pope entries are incomplete or confused. Bowyer printed vol. iv of the Homer, published in quarto and folio in 1718 by Lintott, 200 in Writing Royal, 460 in Second Royal, 250 in Demy, and 1,000 in Pott, all of which were delivered in June and July 1718. And in 1719 he printed several volumes of the first duodecimo in 2,500 copies and three volumes of the second duodecimo edition each in 5,000 copies. In the same year he printed the second edition of Eloisa to Abelard, 2,500 copies delivered in October though it is dated 1720: and other reprints followed in which there is little of fresh interest. Evidence is indeed provided that the quarto edition of the Four Epistles, printed in 1744, was really suppressed. A total of eight copies only were delivered to Knapton by order of Mr. Warburton, and when the stores were checked in the warehouse on 17 September 1745, it is noted that there are ‘left in the warehouse’ of the 100 fine copies g7, and of the ggr ordinary, 986.

Though Nichols states’? that Bowyer printed “Two large editions in quarto (10,500) of “Polly, an Opera; ... by Mr. Gay. With the Songs and Basses engraved on Copper-plates”’, there is no evidence for this in the Ledger. {Nichols was clearly relying on ledger A—see Checklist 1427 and 1432.} But the account is disappointingly incomplete, and may not be reliable. It states simply that on 3 March 4 reams superfine and on 19 March 5 more of Crown were received from Mr. Brewer; and on the other side that on 23 March 1729 the whole impression was delivered to Mr. Gay, consisting of 5,000 copies. But if we can trust these dates at all, it is interesting to see that for a small book of this kind it was possible to print off an edition of 5,000 in three or four days. 12. See Anecdotes, 1. 404.

Bowyers Paper Stock Ledger 15 The rather striking fact about some of these more important books is the length of time between the date when the first consignment of paper was ordered and the first printed volume completed. For instance, the first consignment of paper for Sir Isaac Newton's Principia mathematica, the magnificent quarto edition of 1726 licensed to Innys on the 25th of March, was received in November 1723; but further supplies continued to be added to the account during a period of 19 months, when presumably the press-work started. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful productions of Bowyer’s press, printed in Caslon English, 50 copies on superfine Royal, 200 on Gen{oa} Royal,

and 1,000 on Demy.

I had hoped to find some evidence in the Ledger to show which issues were printed

first when an edition was published in two different sizes. But the accounts do not help, as deliveries of both sizes are usually entered on the same dates. One of the volumes of Bathurst’s edition of Swift’s Works was indeed delivered separately, all the quarto copies on 21 April 1755 and all the octavo copies afterwards on 27 April and 2 May. But the printing must have gone on simultaneously as proof copies were delivered of both during the time of printing, and an advanced copy of each size was deliv-

ered on the same date. There is an account of part of the first collected edition of Fielding’s Works for Millar in 1762—the fourth volume quarto in 250 copies and the corresponding seventh and eighth volumes octavo in 500 copies. The paper for this was first delivered for the octavo in July 1760, for the quarto not till November and December, and a final small amount to each account in March 1762. Here the octavo seems to have been set up first, as parts of two copies of the octavo were delivered ‘as far as worked’ in April and August 1761. But here again the first completed copies of each kind were sent to the binder on the same date, 2 April 1762, 17 more of each on 10 April,

when the first parcels of each were also delivered together to the publisher. In the account for the octavo volumes there is an unusually detailed calculation of the way in which sections were worked together, which show how the press-work was carefully planned in terms of sheets. ‘The 78 reams were divided in this way:

Used for Vol. VI. A-Nn 36 Vol. VIE Oo% ) workd

Vol. VII. Kk¥% } togeth’ : Vol. VII. Pp

Vol. VI. = LI% of VY) cancelled Vol. VIII. B-Ii 31

D° 9 D° ALI-Tt % Sh' Y,

Used for Shts — reprinted V4 7774

Mr B. ‘R78

& p* for by

There is one curiosity which I must not omit in the account of what the warehouseman calls Lord Cobham’s Trial—1.e. a reprint of Johan Bale’s Brefe Chronycle Concerning the

16 Herbert Davis: Bowyers Paper Stock Ledger Examynacyon and Death of the Blessed Martyr of Christ, Sir Johan Oldecastell, the Lorde Cobham. Six copies of this were printed on vellum, and a separate note gives the num-

ber of vellum sheets used for the 10% sheets of the books, 69 for the 6 copies, as one sheet had to be reprinted.

But Bowyer, learned printer though he was, did not confine his activities to the printing of books.!3 There is, for instance, a separate account of the receipt of various kinds of paper during the period 1721-40 with notes of its use in small quantities for all sorts of miscellaneous items. Some are still connected with books, such as Proposals, Proof paper, Errata sheets, Titles, and one I can’t be sure of, which might be for ‘wrapping’ —perhaps for the blue covers. There is an interesting series of catalogues of books for Gyles, annual jobs of 10-12 sheets in 750 copies. And then we move over into items such as Bishops’ Charges, Indentures, Lawyers’ Cases, Receipts, Bills for Hogs and Pigs, and one I don’t understand—Paper for Gold Coin. {This is the printer’s abbreviation for Martin Folkes, 4 table of English gold coins—see Checklist 2285.} And there is also a separate account of Malt-Books for Mr. Vincent, i.e. account books for the collection of malt-tax: ‘long and short Malt-Books’ and ‘Brewers’ Discharges’, and ‘Candle and Soap Entries’.

When I was first shown the Ledger and given the chance to look through it, I confess that I expected it to provide a good deal more evidence about the publication of

some of the important books of this period and about the methods of eighteenthcentury printers than | have been able to discover in it. Nevertheless it has led me to handle a number of interesting volumes and to examine some familiar ones with a new interest; and in groping my way among the stacks of printed sheets in William Bowyers warehouse, it has inevitably led me to turn for help to John Nichols, his successor in this great printing tradition. I am afraid I may have been unduly influenced by his infectious enthusiasm for the house of Bowyer, and have been guilty of frittering away your time this afternoon inexcusably with the trivialities of bibliomaniacal anecdotes, rather than with the serious exercises more fitting for our Societies. If, however, you should have any patience left, I should like to hear from those who have had occasion to use records of this kind what method they would suggest to extract out of such crude and often unreliable accounts what information they contain that might be of value.

13. Like Henry Woodfall he might have had a special category in his accounts for ‘gentlemen’s work and others, not booksellers’. But he does not seem to have printed any ‘Historical Lists of horses and races.

& The Printers of Robinson Crusoe N a recent paper in Te Library Herbert Davis has pointed out a reference in Ni[eo Literary Anecdotes to the printing of the early editions of Robinson Crusoe in

1719.1 Nichols states that William Bowyer printed part of the second, the third, and the fourth editions, and adds: ‘So rapid was the demand for this ingenious production, that several printers were employed to print the successively successful editions.’ From his examination of the type Davis concluded that ‘Bowyer printed the last third (sheet

T to the end) of the second edition and the middle section (H-S) of the third’. I propose to examine the evidence of type and ornaments in greater detail, and to show exactly the parts printed by Bowyer—in the second and ¢wo ‘third’ editions. I propose also to show that these three editions were further divided, part being given to Hugh Meere; and that in particular the printer who undertook the work for Taylor, printing the whole of the first edition and part of all the rest, was Henry Parker of Goswell Street. It has been held by H. C. Hutchins, in Robinson Crusoe and its Printing (New York, 1925), that the first and succeeding editions of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 were printed as well as published by William Taylor.3 His contention was accepted by L. L. Hubbard in an article on “Text changes in the Taylor editions of Robinson Crusoe with remarks on the Cox editions’.* Hutchins, however, produced no satisfactory evidence to show that Taylor was ever a printer. He wrongly inferred from another imprint, London: Printed, and are to be sold by W. Taylor, that ‘Taylor was both printer and bookseller, and hence

that he printed Robinson Crusoe, although it is clear from the comma that London: Printed, is to be taken absolutely.* Both Hutchins and Hubbard disregard Nichols’s statements, although the evidence they collect confirms them. Both notice the differences of type in the several editions, but Hubbard infers from his detailed analysis that ‘all of them belonged in one

establishment’.6 Hubbard suggests that Taylor would not tolerate from an outside printer such a variety of types as are used in editions 3 ‘phoenix’ and 4B; but when more than one printer had been employed Taylor was obliged to accept the untidy variety.’ Hubbard further suggests that in a small printing-house the need for haste would

oblige the compositor to use several different founts, as there would be no time to 1. ‘Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger’, The Library, v, 6 (1951), 81-82 {reprinted above; see pp. 8-9}. 2. Anecdotes, 1. 180, 181.

3. Hutchins, pp. 27 ff., and p. 100, n. 2. 4. Papers of the Bibliographical Soctety of America, 20 (1926), {1-76, at pp.} 27-29. Unless otherwise stated, all references to Hubbard and Hutchins are to the above works. 5. See R. W. Chapman, ‘Eighteenth century imprints’, The Library, 1v, 11 (1931), 503-4, and A. T. Hazen, ‘One meaning of the imprint’, The Library, v, 6 (1951), 120-23.

6. Hubbard, p. 27. 7. Ibid., pp. 28, 29. Originally published in The Library, v, 7 (1952), 124-31. Copyright © 1952 The Bibliographical Soci-

ety. Reprinted by permission. 17

18 The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” distribute the type. This would not apply to the first edition, which has only one fount of pica roman (and italic) throughout, but does explain why in the later editions as many as three founts of pica roman are often used in succession within a single forme.® Hubbard’s inferences remain valid if they are limited to the sections printed by Parker. Moreover Hubbard is correct in placing two founts of pica roman (B and C) in a separate class ‘because of their better quality and appearance and because they never appear in detached pages’.? These are the types used by Meere and Bowyer. Defoe’s narrative was first published about 25 April 1719 as The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner ... Written by himself. London: Printed for W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, MDCCXIX. Such was its success that it ran into six editions in four months, besides being continued in a second and third parts, and pirated. ‘These editions are listed by Hutchins as follows: first edition, second edition, two ‘third’ editions—the first (3T) with a ‘lion’ tail-piece, and the second (3c) with a ‘phoenix’ tail-piece on the last page of text, two ‘fourth’ editions—the

first (4A) without a comma after ‘Life’ on the title, and the second (4B) with the comma.?°

The first edition was published on 25 April, the second on 8 May, the third on 6 June, and the fourth on 6 August 1719.11 The number of editions together with the dates of publication show what efforts were made to satisfy the extraordinary demand. There is a close parallel in the success of Gulliver's Travels, of which there were three editions, amounting it is said to about 10,000 copies, within two months.” There were perhaps about the same number for Robinson Crusoe. {Probably there were well under 10,000. See below, ‘Edition quantities for Robinson Crusoe, 1719’ (1969), where it is revealed from ledger A that the second and two ‘third’ editions were printed 1,000 at a time, and postulated ‘that the other three editions also were of 1000 copies’ (p. 147). D. F. Foxon subsequently found in the auction catalogue of William Taylor's copyrights, including those for Robinson Crusoe, a possible reason for such edition quantities of 1,000 at a time (‘the entries make it clear that Defoe received an advance on every

8. Ibid., p. 26. g. Ibid., p. 27.

10. Hutchins, p. 96, and Hubbard, p. 3. Hutchins writes of two issues of both the third and fourth editions, but this is merely a confusion of terms—editions 4A and 4B, for instance, were printed from entirely different settings of type. ir. These dates are from newspaper advertisements. The first edition is advertised as ‘this day published’ in the Dazly Courant for Saturday, 25 April, and as ‘just published’ in the same paper for the 28th: the second edition as ‘this day published’ in the St. James’ Post for 8-11 May, and the Post-Boy for 9-12 May; and as ‘just published’ in the Post Man for 9-12 May: the third as ‘this day published’ in the issue for 6 June of the Original Weekly Journal, the Weekly Journal or Saturday’s-Post, and the Weekly Journal or British Gaze-

teer. the fourth as ‘this day published’ in the Post Man for 6-8 August. Hutchins, however, gives the date for the second edition as 12 May, and for the fourth edition as 8 August (pp. 54, 89, 103-4). He repeats the dates given by Herman Ullrich (Robinson and Robinsonaden. Bibhographie, geschichte, kritik, Weimar, 1898) and Wm. S. Lloyd (Catalogue of various editions of Robinson Crusoe, Philadelphia, 1915). Part I is entered in

the Stationers’ Register on 23 April, Part II on 17 August, and Part HI on 3 August 1720. 12. Hubbard, Contributions toward a bibliography of Gulliver’s Travels (Chicago, 1922), p. 22. Hubbard also quotes from a letter of Gay to Swift, dated 17 Nov. 1726, saying of the first edition that ‘the whole impression sold in a week’. See also Davis, op. cit., pp. 82, 83 {reprinted above; see pp. 9, 1}.

The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” 19 1000 copies printed, [though] we cannot be sure whether the original contract specifically limited each edition to that size.’ (More on Robinson 1719’, The Library, v, 15 [1970], 57-58).}

Hubbard suggests that the reason for duplicating the ‘third’ and ‘fourth’ editions was to be found in the late sixteenth-century regulations of the Stationers’ Company limiting the size of editions.13 This is unsatisfactory, since there is evidence at this period of large numbers of copies being printed—up to four and even five thousand; so long, however, as paper remained so large a part of the total cost of printing it was usually safer to print off a new edition than to sink capital in a large stock of copies. R. B. McKerrow provides the most likely answer: ‘In the case of a very short book of which a large number of copies were required for immediate sale, the printer might perhaps set up in duplicate...to save time in working off.’ It is obvious that having been divided among three printers Robinson Crusoe would rank as a short book. The following table of the different founts of pica roman in the Taylor editions of Part I in 1719, assigned to the printer who used them, will show the division of labour, without the need for further explanation. It is based on an examination of copies in Bodley and the British Museum. For ease of reference the editions and types are designated as in Hubbard’s thoroughly reliable table. ‘The divisions are confirmed by other features of the text. For instance, Bowyer uses press figures according to his usual custom, Parker uses only the symbol f intermittently, whilst Meere uses none at all. Ornaments and types show the title and preface (1) to each edition to have been printed by Parker.

PARKER MEERE BOWYER

Editions Types A (D E) Type B Type C

Ist A (throughout)

2nd A (B-O8, Z-2A8 [-2A7,8]) B (P-S8) C (T-Y38)

3rd (‘lion’, 3T) A (B-Q3) B (R-U8) C (X-2A8) 3rd (‘phoenix’, 3c) ADE (B-G8, O-S38) B (T-2A8) C (H-N§8)

4th (4A) A (D) (throughout)

4th (4B) A DE (B-O8) A (P-T®) E (U-2A8)

Types D and E are used as ‘emergency’ founts, when the supply of type A runs out. This suggests that Parker, in common with many other early eighteenth-century printers, owned strictly limited quantities of type, and could not afford to keep many sheets standing at once. Reimpression being impossible save for small sections, Parker was free to reprint what sheets he wished. Todd’s statement that ‘the eighteenth-century 13. Hubbard, pp. 23 ff. Hubbard refers to an Arbitration Case, dated 16 Nov. 1635, reprinted in Arber’s Transcript, 1§54-1640, i. 22, par. 6. 14. [he Bowyer paper-stock ledger has much information about the size of edition. See also William

B. Todd, “Bibliography and the editorial problem in the eighteenth century’, Studies in Bibhography, 4 1951), 52.

"9 "3 Introduction to Bibliography, p. 214, n. 1.

20 The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” compositor, with apparently unlimited quantities of type at hand, could on occasion set as many as 350 pages and allow this enormous aggregate of metal to remain intact for innumerable impressions’ must be confined to the few exceptionally large printinghouses in the latter part of the century.1° From a study of the Bowyer press up to 1765, it would seem that ‘Todd’s generalizations are too sweeping, and that, for instance, type was not kept standing to the extent which he suggests. {Nevertheless, the earlier use of standing type, even if in not such large quantities, was perhaps not uncommon. The entry under ‘Reimpression’ in the Topical Index to The Bowyer Ledgers lists 334 Checklist items. However, each item in this list should be individually assessed. The ledger record only occasionally specifies the use of standing type—see under “Type, standing’ in the Topical Index. More often the ledger use of the term ‘reprinted’ leaves the question of resetting or not to be decided by examination

of printed copies. For instance, the House of Lords appeal case of Francis Leigh (Checklist 3245) is entered as having been printed in 600 copies royal, and then ‘reprinted No. 300 royal’ (B448). Only one copy having been seen, it remains doubtful whether standing type was used or not. However, often a reduced charge entered for reprinting signals the use of standing type. For instance, ledger B462 records eight ‘printings’ in 1744 of George Berkeley’s Siris (Checklist 3194-7, 3200-04), the charge for the last five being very much less. In these instances the presence of standing type has

been detected, although it has not been possible to link copies seen to any particular reimpression. The problem is summed up in the Notes to Checklist 3196, and referred to below in “The Bowyer ledgers: their historical importance’ (1988), pp. 187-88 (p. 148

in the original). It should not however be supposed that a full charge for reprinting necessarily indicates resetting. Compositorial labour is involved in the handling of standing type, and both compositors and master might willingly (or in the case of the master, inadvertently) profit from any lessening of labour. For instance, the younger Bowyer at first charges for resetting the whole of the second edition of William Somervile’s Hobdinol, 1740, but accepts a final payment “abated for 2 shts standing’, perhaps at the customer’s prompting (Checklist 2807 and ledger B406).} {For the years 1730-9 covered by ledger C with its detailed record of composition

and press-work, the use of standing type may confidently be inferred. On 27 January 1733 Thomas Hart was paid 7s.6d. for setting the whole 1% sheets of An act for inclosing several large common fields within the parishes of Welsbourne Hastings (Checklist 1903).

On to February the companionship of Gater Grantham, Thomas Hart, Mottram. Newsted, Thomas Henderson, and Oliver Nelson was paid for a quantity of setting which included ‘Filling up the Act for Welsbourne Hastings’. Four impressions were printed of 150+250+50+50 copies. Was the ‘filling up’ performed on more than one occasion, or were there only two states of the text? Again, only one copy has been seen. }

{For certain classes of work, involving relatively small quantities of type and the certainty of a reprint being required within a relatively short time, the practice of keeping standing type seems to have been common. Legal cases and private bills, as in16. Todd, op. cit., p. 44.

The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” 2I stanced above, are two such categories. The Bowyers were also in the habit of keeping type standing for their sheets of the almanacs and psalms printed for the Stationers’ Company—-see the Introductory Commentary to The Bowyer Ledgers (p. xxxvii).} {The related question of the quantities of type available to the eighteenth-century compositor likewise merits further study. Philip Gaskell has suggested a range of ‘between 450 and 2,250 kg. per press in the later seventeenth and in the eighteenth century’ (A new introduction to bibliography, 1972, p. 38). One would rather know the available amount of each particular size and face. Fortunately, information as to the varieties and weights of types held by Bowyer at some time in the 1740s or early 1750s is given in what I have called the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols notebook. For instance, ‘A new one-nick’d English 1018 lb.’ is included among ‘Letter to be added Sept. 1763’, with the rider ‘Of the old English mentioned [in the body of the inventory] but a small quantity is remaining’. As often with text founts at the Bowyer press, the new replaces the old. The amount would no doubt have been considered by John Smith, author of The printer's grammar, 1755, as a ‘tolerable large Fount of Letter’ (p. 47). (I have shown this work to have been printed by Samuel Richardson—see ‘Samuel Richardson and Smith’s Printer's Grammar’, The Book Collector, 18 (1969), 518-19). Smith argues that too large a fount is not only expensive to buy, but makes ‘negligent Correctors, when they know how far

a Fount goes, and therefore give themselves no Concern about returning Proofs...’ (p. 47). He recalls a fount, presumably of English, ‘which sat [set] up above thirty sheets in Folio, of 77 lines long, and 45 m’s wide, before Imperfections were cast to it...’ (p. 48). This is far from the 350 pages cited by Todd. A brief account of the notebook, which contains an inventory and specimen of the younger Bowyer’s types at a time not long after his father’s death, is given in ‘An editorial impasse: the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols printers’ notebook’ (1992), reprinted below.} For early eighteenth-century books differences in typography generally indicate where two or more printers have been at work, but such differences are less obvious later in the century when printing practices become more standardized, and Caslon types predominate. Press figures, largely by their presence or absence, continue to be useful in detecting divisions in the text but less so as they are more consistently used. The identity of the printers must usually be discovered from ornaments, or not at all, further confirmation being then provided by a detailed comparison of the typography with other works from the same presses. In the case of Robinson Crusoe one luckily has Nichols’s explicit statement that Bowyer printed part of the second, third, and fourth editions. It is most probable that Nichols discovered from Bowyer’s account-book that he had printed part of the second and two succeeding editions, which are in fact the second and two third editions.17 Unfortunately, there is no mention of Robinson Crusoe in the Bowyer paper stock ledger, now in the Bodleian Library. Bowyer’s part in the third ‘lion’ edition is at once shown by two of his ornaments— on 2A6" and 2A7. The first is the ‘lion’ tail-piece used very often by Bowyer for over 17. Nichols, i. 118, where Nichols implies that he is using Bowyer’s account book.

22 The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe”

af, a TT. ~ n ED yy ' \ it ic ae - 5/ is a WE . FZ ¥ |

| mt ZY? : nl, oe 2 al os WG) ve ee 4 : ES,

) i AALR ted \ e Cy s 7 —-OE Y . c LG ye la”EY P. BY ONE ee ee —— (a) Parker

Sans (= a Py) tf /

C j/ I; gaa : os A. ») 7BoFSu a! ME Ap SN SefoOL of U3! ) * \ oC Oe co ZZ, ‘es 4 7 iy C oxy D NS a % f \) ao> (a >

SON i ‘\afy. Y Vee fF‘Ys ) oF

a44a a“iit4TR: >a1 6& |a eh an LYyom ) App» =fF ; «;SA .: oa,VA ( (JAi 4as>Vas 1 KC BCS C “Ws = SsA 4kSy »=g aa as (d ) Bowyer

The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” 23 fifty years (fig. (d)). It is easily distinguished from several variants, which have no central face—Parker uses one in Parts II and III of Rodinson Crusoe. The other is an easily recognizable head-piece, of which I have found no imitations. Both ornaments are used in Maittaire’s Historia typographorum Parisiensium, printed by Bowyer in 1717, from which the reproduction is taken.1® Moreover, the sheets printed by Bowyer bear every other sign of coming from his

press. For instance, type C, a well-cut ‘fat’ type, probably of Dutch origin, is used in Thomas Fuller’s Pharmacopoeia Bateana, which according to Bowyer’s paper stock ledger was delivered to the publisher on 16 September 1719. Type B also is used in distinct sections, in the second and third editions which were printed in such haste. The only ornament in these sections is the ‘phoenix’ tail-piece in the third ‘phoenix’ edition (on 2A6"), which appears in the following works ‘printed by H. Meere’: A poem dedicated to the Queen, and presented to the Congress at Utrecht, upon

declaration of the Peace.... London, Printed by H. Merre for R. Gos inc ... and Sold by J. Morpuew ... MDCCXIII and The true history of the great St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria; and of his famous Creed.... London, Printed for J. Roperts ... 1719. This ornament can be identified with certainty from several defects.1? On the extreme left a slight break may be seen just above the lower flower, and another in the scroll 4 mm. to the right of the upper flower. It is reproduced as fig. (c) from the Bodleian copy of the True History, in which the impression is much clearer. Meere’s address is given in Plomer’s Dictionary as (1) Black Friar, in Blackfriars; (2) Old Bailey. 1708-24. From the imprints of the Historical Register and the accompanying Chronological Diary for the years 1722 and 1723 it appears that Meere removed from Black-Fryers to the Old Bailey near Ludgate early in 1723, and that early in 1724 his press was taken over by C. Meere, who is probably his widow. The largest part of the early editions of Robinson Crusoe was printed by Henry Parker, who may himself have called in Meere and Bowyer to meet the demand for copies. In proof of this one has the evidence of Parker’s ornaments for every section (save sheets O-S in the third ‘phoenix’ edition) where A D E types are used. These ornaments are to be found in works of the same period, said in the imprint to be printed by H. Parker. A brief list of these works is given at the end of this note. Confirmation is again provided by the other types used, and by details of typography. Two of Parker’s ornaments have been reproduced from the sixth of the works listed below. The head-piece (a) appears on the first page of text in all the first editions of Robinson Crusoe.?° It is easily identified by a dent in the top inner border about 2 mm. from the right. The tail-piece (b) is used only in edition 4A (on 2A6"), but may also be 18. See Davis, op. cit., p. 76 {reprinted above; see p. 4}, for an account of the printing of this book. 1g. A larger version is reproduced as no. 41 in William Sale’s Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (Cornell U.P., 1950). Meere himself, Bowyer, and Parker all use larger variants of it. 20. Parker is still using (a) in 1720, but seems to have disposed of it in the same year as it appears three times in: The art of dying well. In two books written originally in Latin by Cardinal Bellarmin. Now translated into English by John Ball... London: Printed by I. Dalton ... 720. The few other ornaments in this work are very poor. Plomer notes: Isaac Dalton, printer and book-seller, Goswell Street, 1716-18. The address is note-worthy.

24 The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” found in the first, fourth, and sixth of the works at the end. Its most obvious defect is a break which nearly severs the tip of the quiver. Bowyer uses a very similar and well cut version of it in reverse. The first and second editions of Part II, published not long after the fourth edition of Part I, and the first edition of Part III, coming out almost one year later, were printed entirely by Parker. There are six of his ornaments in Part II and over two dozen in Part

Ill. Type A is used throughout. There is some confusion in the existing references to Parker, but he is certainly the Parker of Goswell Street mentioned by Samuel Negus in his list of printers compiled in 1724.

The question is decided by entries in the Apprentice Register (1666-1727), which I was able to inspect through the kindness of Mr. S. C. Hodgson. The following entry appears for 6 July 1719: ‘Henry Parker Benj*. Brown Son of Benj’. of the Parish of St. Sepulchres London—Surgeon Deceased to Henry Parker—Goswell street printer 7 years ij-vj.. Later entries confirm this. Parker bound Thomas Brown (no relation of the above) on 7 May 1722, William Byron on 8 December 1725, William Willoughby on 5 September 1727, whilst George Walter, apprentice of Jacob Tonson junior, was turned over to him for the remainder of his term on 7 November 1727. In the last three entries Parker's address is given as in Jewen Street. Negus lists two printers: Parker of Goswell St. and Parker senior of Salisbury St., without giving christian names.”! Parker senior is given as Edward in Plomer’s Dictionary of Printers (1668-1725) and in Ellic Howe’s London Compositor.?? Parker of Goswell

Street is indexed by Nichols as Andrew, and Howe notes that between 1709 and 1718 Andrew Parker of Goswell Street bound three apprentices, the last of these on 6 October 1718.73 I have not yet found any evidence of books printed by him during this period. But from 1717 there is plenty of evidence that Henry Parker was printing at Goswell Street until 1724 when he moved to Jewin Street, where he bound four apprentices between 1725 and 1728, according to Howe’s notes to Pendred’s list of master printers in 1785.74 Howe fails to identify him with the printer in Goswell Street, presumably because his information does not go back beyond 1725. Further information about the Parker press is provided by the imprints of several almanacs, including Edmund Weaver’s The British Telescope. According to these, H(enry) Parker was succeeded in 1733 by A(nne) Parker, who was followed in 1740 by T(homas) Parker. Plomer notes Thomas Parker, printer in Jewin Street, c. 1753. Since Henry Parker is not well known the following short list of works printed by him may be worth noting. Of twenty works that I have found, printed by him between 1717 and 1721, ten have his name or initials in the imprint and three were published by 21. Nichols, i. 289 ff. 22. Howe, op. cit., p. 37. 23. Nichols, vii. 308; and Howe, p. 37.

24. Howe, p. 48. {The information here given agrees with that extracted by D. F. McKenzie from his systematic combing of the Company registers. However, McKenzie notes for what they may be worth the following addresses and dates for Henry Parker: ‘1718, Aldersgate Street; 1719, Goswell Street; 1725, Jewin Street’ (Stationers' Company Apprentices 1701-1800, 1978, p. 261).}

The Printers of “Robinson Crusoe” 25 William Taylor. No less than six others signed by Parker were printed for J. Morphew in 1718.

1. The Lay-Man’s pleas for separation from the Church of England answered: wherein the arguments of a late pamphlet, entitled Lay-Nonconformity justified, [by John Norman] are exam-

in’d... LONDON: Printed by H. Parker, for HENry CLeMeEnTs ... MDCCXVII. [Ornament (b). |

2. Marshall, Nathaniel. 4 defence of our Constitution in Church and State ... Printed by H. Parker for Wi1Lt1AM Tay or, ... Henry CLements ... MDCCXVII. [Ornament (b).] 3. Hart, Edward. A preservative against comprehension.... Printed by H. Parker, and Sold by SAM. KEBLE ... HENRY CLEMENTS ... GEORGE STRAHAN ... JOHN MorpHew ... MDCC-

XVIII. 4. Reasons against repealing the Occasional and Test Acts ... Occasion’d by reading ... The State-

Anatomy of Great Britain.... Printed by H. P. for J. MorpHew ... MDCCXVIII. [Ornament (b). |

5. Beveridge, William. Private thoughts upon religion ... Printed for W. Taytor ... MDCCXIX. 6. (Grey, Zachary.) A vindication of the Church of England, in answer to Mr. Peirce’s Vindication of the Dissenters. By a Presbyter of the Church of England. Part. I.... Printed, and are to be sold by JoHN Wyart ... 1720. [Ornaments (a) and (b).] 7. Jones, Henry. The Philosophical Transactions ... [1700-1720] abridg'd ... In two volumes....

Printed by H. Parker, and Sold by G. Stranan .... J. Bowyer ... B. Linror ... D. Browne ... W. Lewis... C. Kine ... MDCCXXI.

BLANK PAGE

Three Eighteenth-Century Reprints of the Castrated Sheets in Holinshed’s Chronicles HEN the second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and

\ | \ | Ireland (3 vols.) was published in 1586, parts of it, dealing chiefly with AngloScottish relations, the Babington plot, and Leicester’s expedition to the Low Countries, aroused Queen Elizabeth’s disapproval and were ordered to be removed.! The cancellations may be deduced from surviving copies as pp. 421-4, 433-6, and 443-50 of Volume II, and pp. 1328-31, 1419-1538, and 1551-74 of Volume III. Those in the latter volume were replaced by seven new leaves paged 1419-20; 1421, 14903 1491, 1536; 1537-8; 1551-25 1553-45 1555» 1574-

Between 1723 and 1728 three reprints of the castrated sheets were put on the market,

the first published by Gyles and Woodman and edited by John Blackburn, the second by Bateman and Cowse, and the third by “Dr. Drake’? Details of the publication of the

first two of these are given by John Nichols, and three different sets of sheets are known. It has not yet, however, been shown which set corresponds to which publication. The object of this note is to make these identifications. According to Nichols,? the Pos¢boy for 11 February 1722/3 carried proposals to print ‘a small number’ of the castrated sheets at £5.55. a set, subscriptions to be sent within one month to William Mears, Fletcher Gyles, or James Woodman. Rival proposals appeared in the Postboy of 16 February for a small edition at 50s., ‘to be finished as soon as possible’; this set would consist of forty-four sheets and subscriptions were to be sent to Christopher Bateman and Benjamin Cowse. This proposal, according to Nichols, was the subject of an indignant statement by the first proposers in the Postman of 6 June in which they complained that “Thomas Jett, of Gray’s-inn, esq. or Christopher Bateman and Benj. Cowse, his agents, did secretly hand about some very uncorrect copies’, claiming them to be exactly corrected by the original, ‘with an intention to prejudice the first undertakers’; this reprint they alleged, lacked ligatures and did not answer line 1. Cf C.S.P. Dom., 1581-1590, p. 697, where something of Elizabeth I’s disapproval is communicated to Lord Burghley by Thomas Windebank, 3 November 1590. The Bardon Papers (ed. Conyers Read, Camden Society, 3rd series, xvii, 1909, pp. 97-99) contains ‘An Apology for certain passages in Holingshed’, made apparently by Francis Thynne for certain remarks about the Earl of Shrewsbury, copied from B.M. Egerton MS. 2124, fo. 69. See also Bibliography of British History. Tudor Period, 1485-1603 (1933), ed. Conyers Read, no. 289, where it is stated that the castrated passages ‘were published separately in Lond., 1725, and have been included in the ed. of 1807-8’. 2. Cf. D.N.B. (art. Holinshed), ix. 1026: ‘said to have been edited by Dr. Drake and to have appeared in 1728’. D.N.B. gives nothing helpful under either Samuel Drake or Francis Drake. Samuel (1686?-1753) was rector of Treeton, Yorks., in 1728; Bowyer printed a book of his in 1719. Francis (1696-1771), the antiquary of York, was city surgeon at York in 1727; Bowyer printed proposals for his Edoracum in 1732 and 1735. 3. Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 1 (1812), pp. 249-52.

Originally published in The Library, v, 13 (1958), 120-24. Copyright © 1958 The Bibliographical Soci-

ety. Reprinted by permission.

27

28 Three Eighteenth-Century Reprints of the 2 0) 5 o IV eRALe ADUMOUL aNie NIONIC: UeraT WE

The grant of Edward-the tus wyitethtothis Agelnothus and others

Rochester caStell to Henrie Cob er .

Re BY Dwardue Dei gratia ib The letter of Canutus to his

ms Ee A iv. Snious, Aecrc.:Nose°de fidelitate “ we' . gO DE) minus Hibernia, dux A: of England touching thofe tl

a, oa baw nae snarl . Cotes yaad Anutus rex totins Anglia, € Ge eotccee) fderantes, cémiftmue cs cimti eal hie, Norwezie, o partis Swanor

(x) (2)

Sig i 5 tenendam . nol iC. utho metropelisano, cx Alfrico E. bus mostris ad firmam, ad totam vitam fuam SAS {a F shabfane epifcopis firum ciuldem ciuitatis, cam pertinentijs, cw st: garage pert Oe Seen iam bs hie fe

The Cobhams lordsof Ran 4 receiuedthe fame) % haue faithfullic an

of Shorne. , al ,

Rundall in Kent, inthe par "et dovwne in this fogt. bee"

| The teftimoniall left by the SrsFee Auing before perfoxmed th of Roffe with the duke of “4 # fuccedion all thelorsof eh yy 37)&either by theofname of DQeatin". ean a .

PQABE Cobham,o2 Bzmke ;o2derrec — ABSRKESI| Os Tohannes Lefleus, Dei g there hathberne thre lors, as Fhauc ba = RE NGPA) copusRoflenfis,& adminifts

(3) (4)

ed one to tinte of the tidCe FZ) faq| Ui» Sc: teftamur hoc {eri fentattake be the lonCobbams, Cobbam of Ps)a ae &apud omnes hoc infpectu: io2d Cobham of RW wdall, and the lod: beard) tures. Cum in hifce pericul!

: - recciued the fanie) 3 hane farthfullic a

A difcourfe of the earles O zn Dolwne im this fo2¢,

ce{ter by teftimoniall fucceffion,left pital Pie y The by the

Fa] Wis going of Robert of Roffe with the duke of

EH Pore Dudlete the fonne of Sob Bauier. “ 7 Se h duke of Morthumberlan MAE BY Os Iohannes Lefleus, Dei gr

be Be wed “yy low countries, hath occa BING pus Roffenfis, & adminiftra

ey pen to treat fomewwhat of Ml oa@> ui, &c: teflamur hoc ferip Seer tauaa eaaitinee Ga ;. aeae 9 QR apudpericulofis omnes hoc infpeturo und2ed peares pa Cim in©L hifce & mot

(5) (6)

with that honozable title of the eripome Ce ne are

Figures 1-6. The castrated sheets in Holinshed’s Chronicles. Specimens of the reprints by (1)-(3)

Bowyer; (4) Parker, for Gyles and Woodman, 1723; (5) Elizabeth Nutt (?), for Bateman and Cowse, 1723; (6) an unidentified printer, for Dr. Drake’s edition, 1728.

Castrated Sheets in Holinshea’s “Chronicles” 29 for line with the original; their own good set was to be published in a few days, and some copies would be available on fine paper. Finally, in the Posthoy of 9 July Mears, Gyles, and Woodman advertised their reprint, “containing 44 sheets’, as just published with a title-page bearing their names ‘to prevent Gentlemen being deceived by a very incorrect copy lately published’. {For this reprint see Checklist 968 and ledger Ars, 204-5; P840 (corresponding to the original fo. 7’).} Nichols states that the edition comprised 250 copies, ‘40 sheets by Mr. Bowyer and 4 by Mr. Parker’, and adds that ‘very extraordinary pains were taken in the correction of the whole by Mr. Blackbourn, the famous Nonjuring Divine’.* Hollingshed’s Castrations for Partners

no.50 200 1723 July 2 d[elivere]d to ye Partners 6 15

20 more 6 15 Sept 5 more 15

1724. May 6 more T5 1725 Oct’. 13 dd to Mr. Blackburn I

1726 Apr. 6 to Mr Gyles & Partn*™ 15 1728 Oct. 24 to Mr. Woodman with waste

& to ye rest of the partn™ 123 200

Nichols’s account is confirmed not only by examination of the printed work, but also by an entry in the Bowyer paper-stock ledger which reads as follows:5 The fifty copies of the last column but one are doubtless copies on fine paper. The

ledger account does not say what happened to thirty-eight of them, but, even so, the venture was hardly a success. However, the ledger does confirm Nichols’s statement that there were 250 copies. The first date of delivery agrees with the advertisements in the Postman and the Postboy. The ledger also makes it clear that there were at least three partners, including Gyles and Woodman, and mentions ‘Mr. Blackburn’. The forty sheets of this edition which were printed, as Nichols tells us, by Bowyer may be identified as 6M3-4 and 6V° 7A-7M? (pp. 1328-31, 1419-1574) in the ‘Historie of Queen Elizabeth’. Four of Bowyer’s ornaments are used eighteen times in all: a small initial E and three small factotums, one showing an eagle with spread wings (figs. 1-3).¢ Press-figures are used ranging from 1 to 8, generally one to each forme, except on 6M3-

4. Bowyer customarily used press-figures, but never above 8 as far as I know. A full range of ligatures (at least nine) and abbreviations is used. 4. D.N.B. v. 119, gives ‘John Blackbourn’ as editor of the 1728 reprint; under Holinshed it states that he edited the first (1723) reprint. 5- Bodleian MS. don. b. 41, fo. 7”. For a description of this manuscript see Herbert Davis, ‘Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger’, in The Library, v, 6 (1951) 73-87 {reprinted above}. 6. These ornaments are nos. 190E, 200, 202, and 219 in the collection of Bowyer’s ornaments made by me and accessible in the Bibliography Room of the Bodleian Library. {The Bowyer ornaments reproduced as figs. 1-3 are renumbered 203, 210, and 208 respectively in The Bowyer ornament stock. The fourth Bowyer ornament referred to is now 187E.}

30 Three Eighteenth-Century Reprints of the The four sheets contributed to this edition by Parker are 2Q3-4, 2R3-4, and 2S2-5 (pp. 421-4, 433-6, 443-50) in the ‘Historie of Scotland’. They contain initials I, N, S, W, &c., which occur in other books printed by Parker (fig. 4).”7 These four sheets also bear other evidence of having come from Parker’s press, e.g. some of the roman types. The running-titles on 2Q4 and 2R3 are from the same setting of type. Copies of the Gyles and Woodman edition seen are contained in the British Museum’s copies 197. g. 6-9; 674. 1. 8 (6M3-4 only); G. 6292-3 (all except 6M3-4); 1322. ff. 1 (Parker’s sheets only). I have not seen a copy of the title-page mentioned in the Postboy of 9 July.

The edition which I identify as Bateman and Cowse’s is recognizable in being printed on a fine white paper watermarked 5S. It divides into two sections which may be the work of two printers; the different types used in the headlines are the most easily recognized feature One section comprises pp. 1419-1538 (thirty sheets, 6V° 7A-7I°) and pp. 1563-74 (three sheets, 7M°). The printer uses three shabby initials—a distinctive T on p. 1419, an EF; with a vertical crack on p. 1422, and an R on pp. 1528 and 1566. The T (20 x 22 mm.), which must not be confused with several copies in use by other printers about the time, depicts two cherubs, one on each side of the upright (fig. 5). It was used in a work printed by John Nutt in 1714,° so that it seems very likely that this portion of this edition was from the press of his successor Elizabeth Nutt.? The other section comprises the four sheets castrated from Volume I and pp. 1328-31, 1539-62 (seven sheets) from Volume III. In spite of the statement by Gyles and Woodman in the Postman of 6 June 1723, this

edition contains a few ligatures (for 00, ee, and st) but none for wh, pp, and th; it contains no abbreviations for -um, -n, &c., and, as Gyles and Woodman had alleged, does not read line for line with the original. There are no press-figures. Copies of this edition seen are the British Museum’s 1322. ff. 11 (pp. 421-4, 443-50, 1328-31, and an incomplete set of pp. 1419-1574) and L.R. 400. b. 23 (all sheets).

The third edition seems to be all by one printer, whom I have not succeeded in identifying. Ornaments, type, and running-titles all indicate this. It is easily identified by the small additional signatures (c-2s) on sheets 6V° 7A-7M?® (pp. 1419-1574). The earlier sheets of this reprint can now be quickly picked out both by their signatures and because they have two factotums which also occur in signatures c-2s (pp. 1419 and 1442). 7. For a short list of these see my note “The Printers of Robinson Crusoe’, in The Library, v, 7 (1952), 124-31 {reprinted above}.

8. ‘A proposal for printing by subscription; a compleat series of the several alterations ecclesiastical, civil and military; that have happen’d by death, removal, or otherways, since the Revolution 1688. To this present 1714 ... Compiled by John le Neve, Gent. Printed by John Nutt in the Savoy (8°, 1714. Bodleian, Fol. 8. 6634). 9. H. R. Plomer, Dictionary of Printers ... 1668-1725, pp. 221-2, dates John Nutt ‘1690(?)-1710(?)’ and

says that he was apparently succeeded by Elizabeth Nutt, 1720-31, who was in partnership with R. Nutt from 1724 (see the imprints of Cox’s Magna Britannia, 6 vols., 1720-31). ‘Nutt, in the Savoy occurs in Samuel Negus’s 4 Compleat and private List of all the Printing-houses in and about the cities of London and Westminster, 1724, reprinted by Nichols (op. cit. 1. 288-312), with a quotation from Dunton which apparently refers to John Nutt (cf. Plomer, loc. cit.).

Castrated Sheets in Holinshea’s “Chronicles” 31 In pp. 421-4 (signed tt) and 443-50 (signed uu, xx) there are two factotums which I have not seen elsewhere. Pp. 1328-31 (signed yy) contain a factotum repeated from p. 424 (fig. 6). The blackletter type is the same size as the original. There are few ligatures in this edition. Of this reprint is the British Museum’s 596. 1. 10 (with pp. 433-6 of the original printing), 11. It will be seen that the additional signatures run from c to 2y—a regular sequence which omits pp. 433-6. In this connexion Lowndes (Bibhographer’s Manual, ed. Bohn, i (1858), p. 1087) is helpful: Castrations to Holinshed’s Chronicles, reprinted 1728, folio. William the Conqueror, A.D. 1066-7, 6 pages. ‘The Historie of Scotland; p. 421 to 424: p. 433 to 436; p. 443 to 450. An. Reg. 23,

Q. Elizabeth, p. 1328 to 1331. An. Reg. 27, p. 1419 to 1574. An. Reg. 28. Also twelve pages of index, beginning on the recto of sign. zz. ‘taken far leuieng’ to the conclusion ‘Ypresse besieged.’

The first six pages of text in Volume III are to be found in the Museum’s 596. 1. 11: the first leaf, which bears a large headpiece, is signed a, and since Lowndes tells us that

the first leaf of the index was signed zz our sequence of signatures is now complete except for b. Was signature b pp. 433-6, of which no copy of this reprint has been seen? Lowndes’s entry also raises a further point: not only were the castrations reprinted, but also leaves at the beginning and end of Volume III, which were particularly subject to

wear and tear. Volumes I and II, being of more modest size, seem to have survived better. Of the index the reprint signed zz has not been seen, but another reprint of it is found in two British Museum copies. The more complete (in L.R. 400. b. 23) begins where the zz edition is said to have done—after F's of the original. It is signed G-I’ Kz, compared with F-G® (G6?) of the original. It is printed on inferior paper and makes no attempt to follow the arrangement of the original, partly because it uses a larger type-face. It therefore occupies seven leaves instead of six, as in the original, and extends to the last verso, on which there is only room for a printer’s tailpiece beneath the text. In the original the last verso was occupied by a device and colophon. {To further complicate matters, ledger C1419-20 records the printing about 3 October 1730 of 50 copies of an ‘Index to Hollinshed’—see Checklist 1594. The small charge of six pence for press work suggests that this was for no more than a single leaf.} As to the front of the volume, the 1728 edition seems only to have contained the first pages (1-6) of the text and not the preliminaries proper. However, the Museum’s copy L.R. 400. b. 23 has A2-Br in another form, with a title-page which appears to be reconstructed from the title-page to the ‘Historie of England’ in Volume I (McKerrow & Ferguson 122) with a new centre inserted reprinting the volume-title of Volume III. Only Br has press-figures (8 on recto, 3 on verso), but all the ornaments save one?® are 10. The exception is a head-piece, used three times, which I have not seen used by Bowyer elsewhere. It appears to be based on an Elizabethan model. {The ornaments are are 151, 1881, 1892, and 215 in The Bowyer ornament stock. The so-called exception was also used by Bowyer in 1710 and 1716; it is Bowyer ornament 3, a recutting of a border used a century before by Richard Field (see border no. 10 in A. E. M. Kirwood, ‘Richard Field, printer, 1589-1624’, The Library, 1v, 12 (1921), 1-39). Bowyer’s printing of the six leaves A2-6 Br is recorded in ledger A204-5; see also Checklist 1015.}

32 Three Reprints of the Castrated Sheets in Holinshed's “Chronicles” Bowyer’s, including the much-copied drummer-boy, reproduced (evidently by mistake) by H. R. Plomer as being from Denham’s edition of Holinshed, Volume II, ‘Chronicles of Ireland’, 1579, with the remark that ‘in some respects it is reminiscent of the eighteenth rather than the sixteenth century’.1! It looks, therefore, as though Bowyer was responsible for all these leaves. If so, they were presumably an addition to his original reprint, for they cannot be reconciled with the forty sheets ascribed to him by Nichols.'2

11, English Printers’ Ornaments, p. 71 and no. 85.

12. My thanks are due to Mr. David Foxon of the British Museum for giving the first draft of this note the very thorough revision which my residence in New Zealand prevented me from undertaking myself.

Some Early Editions of Voltaire Printed in London HIS note reports three additions to the bibliography of Voltaire, all printed in

) London wholly or partly by William Bowyer and not recorded by Bengesco or other authorities.t Some other works by Voltaire which came from the Bowyer Press between 1728 and 1755 are listed in an appendix, with information about their printing and publication from John Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes and from the unpublished Bowyer Paper Stock Ledger.? The first two items are first and second editions of Voltaire’s Histoire de Charles XII (‘Basle’; 1731, 1732), which have title-pages closely resembling those of the first and second editions also with Bale imprints but printed by Jore at Rouen (Bengesco 1257, 1258). The London editions are easily distinguished from Jore’s by having different ornaments on the title-pages and in the text and by differences in collation. ‘The British Museum has the London editions but not Jore’s, whilst the Bibliothéque Nationale has only the Continental editions. The third item is a London edition of Voltaire’s A/zire (1736), which is described in the appendix. Voltaire’s Histoire de Charles XII is an excellent example of the unusual difficulties his works present to the bibliographer because of his tortuous methods of overcoming censorship difficulties and through the attentions of ‘pirates’. An account of its publication is given by Bengesco, who states that the first edition was printed by Jore at Rouen under Voltaire’s supervision and published in November 1731, with a Bale imprint, after the first part of a Paris edition had been confiscated and permission to print withdrawn late in 1730. Bengesco adds that he knew of only one edition with the 1731 1. Bengesco, Voltaire: Bibliographie de ses oeuvres (Paris, 1882-90), vol. i, no. 1257. See also articles in Modern Language Notes by Van Roosbroeck, Horatio Smith, Mary Margaret Barr, and F. J. Crowley (vols.

39 and 44, 47, 48 and 56, 50). In The Library, v, 1 (1946-7), 223-36, Desmond Flower announced a new bibliography of Voltaire to correct and supplement Bengesco. 2. Bodleian Library: MS. don. b. 4. See also “Bowyer’s Paper Stock Ledger’, by Herbert Davis, in The Library, v, 6 (1951), 73-87 {reprinted above}. {Further information about all the Voltaire items reported in this article can be found in The Bowyer Ledgers—see the Index of Names and Titles, also Checklist numbers 1344, 1743, 1764, 1794, 1802, 1808, 1825, 1838, 1958, 2038, 2III, 2271, 2749, 2805, 3310, 3748, 3759, 3760, and

3969. In general, Bowyer ledgers A, B, and C confirm the original findings based on examination of the printed works and of entries in the paper stock ledger. The Bowyer ornament numbers, derived from my B.Litt. thesis, completed 1952, held in the Bodleian library, are now revised to accord with the new numbering given in The Bowyer ornament stock, 1973; the new numbers are bracketed following the original citation. Other works by Voltaire printed by the Bowyers are also to be found in The Bowyer Ledgers—see Checklist 2465, 2749, 2805, 3310, 3748, 3759, and 3760. The first of these, L’enfant prodigue, 1738, bears the false imprint ‘A Paris, chez Prault fils’. No copies have been seen of 2749 (7 Jul 39) “Life of Charles XII’, 2page specimen composed; 2805 (5 Feb 40) “Histoire du siecle Louis XIV’, 2 sheets pica 8°, 500 copies; and

3748 (30 [Mar? 52]) ‘Vie de Louis XIV’, for Dodsley, 10 sheets small pica, 12°.} , Originally published in The Library, v, 14 (1959), 287-93. Copyright © 1959 The Bibliographical Society. Reprinted by permission. 33

34 Some Early Editions of Voltatre date (i.e. Jore’s), but quotes Jore’s Mémoire to the effect that Voltaire had had two different editions of his Charles XII printed at the same time.? Jore may have heard something about the London edition from Voltaire himself, who wrote to Thieriot on 1 June 1731 from Rouen that two editions of Charles XII had been started without his ‘participation’, in England and in France.* These were evidently the London and Rouen editions, for both of which Voltaire must have been responsible, although this was not the impression he wished to give. First London Edition

HISTOIRE | DE] CHARLES XII.| ROI DE SUEDE. | Par M®. DE V**. | Tome Premier. | [Bowyer ornament 34x50 mm.]| A BASLE, |Chez Curistopue Revis.| [rule]}] MDCCXXXI. | 12°. 2 vols. (1) A-P®; pp. [1, 2] 3-180. (2) A-P®; pp. [1, 2] 3-176 [177-180 (blank)]. Divisional title

to vol. 2: HISTOIRE | DE | CHARLES XII. | ROI DE SUE’DE. | Par Mr. De V™. | TOME SECOND. |. Press-figures: (1) 7-1, 11-2, 24-3, 42-1, 72-3, 84-1, 96-1, 102-1, 119-1, 126-1, I40-I, 156-2, 162-2, 176-3; (2) 6-2, 14-2, 36-1, 48-1, 59-2, 72-1, 128-2, 132-1, 152-1, 168-1, 172-2. Copy seen: B.M. 10761. df. 14.

Bowyer ornament no. 133 {143} on t.-p.> Paper Stock Ledger fo. 27: French ed., 742 sheets demy, 750 copies, delivered to Mr. Davis (and two to Mr. Wagstaffe) 13-18 January 1731-2.° Bowyer printed vol. 1 and an unidentified London printer vol. 2. The text of vol. 1 is set in Caslon roman, the text of vol. 2 is not in Caslon. ‘There are no ornaments, save the one on t.-p.

First Rouen Edition (Bengesco 1257)

HISTOIRE|DE CHARLES XII.| ROI DE SUEDE. | Par M®. DE V**.| TOME PREMIER. | lornament 33x50 mm.] | A BASLE, | Chez Curistropue Revis. | [rule] | MDCCXXXTI. | 12°. 2 vols. Vol. 2 as above but: SUEDE ... SECOND. | [Another ornament 32x46 mm.] (1) Tt? A-O? P?° yt; pp. [i-iii] iv, 1-355 [356 (blank), 357 (errata), 358 (blank)]. (2) m2 A-O” P4 yx; pp. Li-iv] 1-363 [364 (blank), 365 (errata), 366 (blank)]. Many ornaments, no press-figures. Copy seen: B.N. Beuchot 341; the other B.N. copies want the errata.

Second London Edition

HISTOIRE | DE | CHARLES XII. | ROI DE SUEDE. | Par Mr. DE V** | Seconde Edition, révié & corrigée | par Auteur. | [Bowyer ornament 40x44 mm.] | A BASLE. | Chez CHRISTOPHE Revis. | [rule] | M. D. CC. XXXII. | 8°. 2 pts. Engraved front.+A-K® L*; 2A-2]® 2K4; front.+pp. [i, ii] iii-ix, 1-157 [158 (blank)]; [1] 2-150 [151-2 (blank)]|. Pt. 2 has “Tome IT’ in signature line on $1 (except F); it has no divisional title. Press figures: (1) iv-7, vj-7, 19-3, 21-5, 35-1, 37-3, 40-7, 65-4, 67-1, 74-7, 90-7, IOI-3, 115-7, I172, 127-7, 132-3, 136-2, 138-4; (2) 4-2, 20-2, 27-2, 34-I, 45-2, 56-4, 63-4, 7471, 93-2, 95-2, 102-4, I0Q4, 121-2, 123-1, 137-1, 148-1. Copies seen: B.M. 611. c. 12(1); U.L.C. 7592. d. 14.

Bowyer ornament no. 168 {150} (see above) on t.-p. Paper Stock Ledger fo. 27: 10% sheets crown, 1,000 copies, first delivered 27 March 1732. 3. Mémotre pour Claude-Frangots Jore. Contre le Sieur Frangots-Marte de Voltaire (1736), reprinted in Voltariana (Paris, 1748), p. 74. 4. Voltaire, CEwures, ed. Louis Moland (Paris, 1877-85), xxxili. 214. 5. See my B.Litt. thesis Works from the Bowyer Press (1713-65), held in the Bodleian.

6. Ledger entries have been expanded and normalized. The dates given are generally for the delivery of the first considerable number of copies to the publisher.

Printed in London 35 Bowyer printed Pt. 1 (from the evidence of ornaments, type, and Paper Stock Ledger) and another London printer Pt. 2. The ornament on ?K3" appears on t.-p. of the ‘fourth’ ed., London 1733 (see Appendix, no. 7).

Second Rouen Edition (Bengesco 1258)

HISTOIRE | DE | CHARLES XII. | ROI DE SUEDE. | Par Mr. DE V** | Seconde Edition, révaé & corrigée | par Auteur. | [ornament] | A BASLE. | Chez Curisropue Revis. | [rule] | M.DCC.XXXII. | 8°. Engraved front.+*8 A-Y8 (+Y6) Z® x1; front.+pp. [i (half-title)-iv] v-xvi, 1-363 [364 (blank), 365-6 (errata)|. Copy seen: B.N. Z Beuchot 342. This edition is in smaller type, from the same press as the first.

Bengesco describes four other editions of 1732: (1) Amsterdam, ‘Aux depens de la Cie’, (2) a ‘nouvelle édition, révié & corrigée par l’auteur (said to be a Machuel piracy), (3) a ‘third’ edition (actually a reissue of the second Jore edition), and (4) a ‘fourth’ (i.e. third) Jore edition. The relationship between the London and Rouen ‘first’ editions of the Histozre de Charles XII deserves comment because of a newspaper report quoted by Nichols to the effect that the first volume of Charles XII had been brought to England as early as 28

February 1729-30.’ In fact, the London edition seems to be simply a reprint of the earlier Rouen edition, but without the ‘fautes 4 corriger’ at the end of Volumes I and II, which are in the nature of authorial revisions.2 This is suggested by the close resemblance between title-pages (to both volumes) of the two editions. The collation of the London edition points to the use of printed copy—for instance, the title is [A]1 and p. [1]. Furthermore, although the London edition is not a page-for-page reprint, it is generally very like the Rouen edition in typography.** However, the matter seems to be decided by the perpetuation in both volumes of the London edition of errors in the other. There are only three wrong accents in certain pages of Volumes I and II of the Rouen edition, but these are all reproduced in the London edition, which adds another nineteen wrong accents in the same pages.? The English printer followed his copy 7. Anecdotes, i. 388, quoting the Weekly Medley for 28 Feb. 1729-30: ‘A Gentleman has brought over the

First Volume in Manuscript of the History of Charles XII. King of Sweden, written in French by the celebrated Mr. Voltaire, author of the Henriade. We hear that it is not allowed to be printed in France, because of the many fine strokes upon Liberty interspersed in different parts of it.’ 8. I had at first wondered if Voltaire had been able to save (and use) a copy of the confiscated Paris edition of volume I, the manuscript of vol. II being not quite ready at that date. For this edition see (Euvres, 1. 208-9. Voltaire apparently made such use of a copy of the suppressed edition of the Lettres philosophiques (1734). He also sent a manuscript of the Lettres which formed the basis of the London edition entitled Lettres écrites de Londres.

8a. {Giles Barber has observed that ‘Frequently such English reprints copied the exact layout of the continental originals’, and argued that ‘it is only the presence of press figures which can suggest English origin and that the use of catch-words on every page only suggests the exclusion of France— ‘Catchwords and press figures at home and abroad’, The Book Collector, 9 (1960), 301-7. The argument is much further developed, citing the second London edition of Voltaire’s Histoire de Charles XII, in C.J. Mitchell, ‘Quotation marks, national compositorial habits and false imprints’, The Library, v1, 5 (1983), 359-84.} g. See (a) Vol. I, ‘Argument du premier Livre’, |. 1, where both eds. have ‘Suede’ for ‘Suéde’; (b) Vol. I, A3, where both eds. have ‘éte’ for ‘été’ (Rouen ed., 1. 14, London ed., 1. 24); (c) Vol. II, ‘étre’ for ‘étre’ (Rouen ed., A4, 1. 13, London ed., A3”, l. 27).

36 Some Early Editions of Voltaire carefully, but was very liable to make mistakes with accents, nor was he able to correct such errors in his copy-text. Finally, there was sufficient time for a copy of Jore’s edition, published in Novem-

ber 1731, to be sent to London and reprinted, because the London edition was not delivered to the publisher until the middle of January 1731-2. Copies of the English translation were delivered to the publisher on 8 February 1731-2,!° and this too could have been done in the time (and from sheets of the London edition without recourse to a manuscript), especially as three translators were said to be engaged on it—a circumstance which indicates haste." I am indebted for help in the final revision of this note to M. Jacques Guignard of the Bibliothéque Nationale, Mr. David Foxon of the British Museum, and Mr. Desmond Flower.

APPENDIX OTHER WORKS BY VOLTAIRE WHOLLY OR PARTLY PRINTED BY BOWYER

1. Alzire (1736).

2. La Henriade, 2nd edition (1728). 3. Henriade. An epick poem (1732). 4. The History of Charles XII (1732).

5. Lhe History of Charles XI, 2nd edn. corrected (1732). 6. The History of Charles XII, 3rd edn. (1732)—a reissue of the 2nd edition. 7. The History of Charles XI, 4th edn. (1732). 8. The History of Charles XII, 6th edn. (1735). 9. The History of Charles XII, 8th edn. (1755). 10. Letters concerning the English Nation (1733). 1. Lettres Ecrites de Londres (‘Basle’, 1734). 12. La Mottraye, Historical and critical remarks on the History of Charles XII. Translated from the French (1732).

1. Alzire, ou les Americains. Tragedie de M. de Voltaire. Representée 4 Paris pour la premiere fois le 27 Janvier, 1736. Errer est d’un mortel, pardonner est divin. Duren. trad. de Pope. Le prix est de trente sols. [Bowyer ornament no. 133 {143}] A Paris, chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche, prés les Augustins, a la descente du Pont-Neuf, aS. Jean dans le Desert. M.DCC.XXXVI. Avec privilege du Roi. 8°. a8 A-E8. Copy seen: Bodleian G.P. 4. (B.M. 640. e. 20 (2) is Bengesco 106, but the epistle to Mme Du Chatelet in this copy has no approbation; it has a headpiece used in 1736 10. Paper Stock Ledger, fo. 27. The Ledger notes that two of the first copies delivered of the French edition went to Mr. Wagstaffe. Compare the Grub-Street Journal, Thurs., 20 Jan. 1731-2: “This day is published, in two vol. twelves, and sold by C. Davis ... A. Lyon ... Histoire de Charles XII. Roi de Suede, par M. de Voltaire. N.B. The translation of the above book is near finished, and will be published in a few days.’ According to the same newspaper the English translation was published on 12 Feb. 1731-2. 11. Anecdotes, i. 480. According to Nichols, who says that he got the information from a manuscript note in a copy shown him by Locker’s son, the Prefatory Discourse was written by John Locker, the first four books were translated by Dr. Jebb, the next two by the Rev. Mr. Wagstaffe, and the last two by John Locker.

Printed in London 37 by the London printer Woodfall, who also printed part of La Mort de César, 1736 (Bengesco go), ‘Imprimée 4 Londres chez Innis. Et se vend, 4 Paris, chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche ....B.N. Z Bengesco 41 is Bengesco 107.) Bowyer printed three sheets (a-B), another London printer doing the last three sheets. There are five Bowyer ornaments in sheets a and A. This edition has not apparently been differentiated from two other ‘Paris’ editions of the same year (Bengesco 106 and 107). The London edition seems to be a copy of one of the Continental editions; the title is practically an exact copy of Bengesco 106, except for the ornament, and the respelling of roy as roz.

2. La Henriade de M’. De Voltaire. Seconde edition revie, corrigée, & augmentée de remarques critiques sur cet ouvrage. [Bowyer ornament no. 157 {174}, 27x40 mm.] A

Londres: Chez Woodman & Lyon ... MDCCXXVIII. 8°. "A4 ("“A2+2) A® at B-T8. Copies seen: Bodleian 8° F 241 Linc.; B.M. 1065. k. 3. (Bengesco 367.) Bowyer printed “A‘ (the title and dedication in English to the Queen) and R-T®, i.e. 3% sheets. The rest may have been printed by James Bettenham, Bowyer’s brother-in-law. Six

Bowyer ornaments are used, including one on the title. This second edition is not in the Paper Stock Ledger, but is listed by Nichols (under date), as is the following translation. Bowyer seems not to have printed the first edition of 1728 in 4°.

3. Henriade. An epick poem. In ten canto’s. Translated from the French into English blank verse. ‘To which are now added, the argument to each canto, and large notes historical and critical. London, Printed for C. Davis ... M.DCC.XXXII. 8°. A8 "B4 *C1 B-P® Q* R-X8+frontispiece (21% sheets); *C1 contains errata and contents. Copies seen: Bodleian 28626 e. 16; B.M. 86. c. 4. Ledger fo. 81: 214 sheets demy, 1,000 copies; delivered 14 July 1732 (44), 1 June 1734 (250), 30 August 1750 (250); total (544) all delivered to

Pemberton. N.B. The record is incomplete. Bowyer printed the whole work and used twenty-four of his ornaments in it.

4. The History of Charles XII.... Translated from the French. [Bowyer ornament no. 120 {185}, 19x34 mm.] London, Printed for Alexander Lyon ... MDCCXXXII. 8°. [A]z B-N® O1, 27B-M8 2N4 202. Copy seen: B.M. 153. b. 23. Ledger fo. 27: 12% sheets demy, 1,000 copies, first delivered on 8 February 1731-2.

Bowyer printed the first section to Or; the next part, beginning at Book V and corresponding to Vol. II of the first editions in French, was done by the joint printer with Bowyer of the second and third editions. The only Bowyer ornament used is on the title. The first four editions in English are listed by Nichols as having been printed by Bowyer, the next edition listed by Nichols being the eighth.

5. Lhe History of Charles XII.... The second edition, corrected. [Ornament not identified as Bowyer’s.] London: Printed for Alexander Lyon ... MDCCXXXII. 8°. A® B-2A® 2B?+frontispiece and map. Copy seen: B.M. 10761. bb. 39. Ledger fo. 27: English, second edition, 12 sheets genoa demy, 2,000 copies, first delivered 15 March 1731-2. Grub Street Journal: published 6 April 1732. Bowyer printed at least B-M® and possibly N8, which would agree with the Ledger; however, the exact division is hard to detect. {Ledger A confirms that Bowyer printed sheets B through N; see also Checklist 1802.} Examination of the type confirms that Bowyer did not print A°.

38 Some Early Editions of Voltaire 6. The History of Charles XII.... The third edition. [Same ornament as preceding. | London: Printed for C. Davis ... A. Lyon ... MDCCXXXII. Copies seen: B.M. 1312. c. 66; Bodleian 8° Rawl. 96.

This is another issue of the sheets of the preceding with a press-variant title.

7. The History of Charles XII.... The fourth edition. [Unidentified ornament.] London: Printed for C. Davis ... A. Lyon ... MDCCXXXII. 8°. AS B-2A® 2B?+frontispiece and map. Copy seen: B.M. 10763. k. 6. Ledger fo. 27: Received 48 reams of genoa demy for the ‘third’ edition; ‘third’ English edition, 2,000 copies, delivered 1 June. Bowyer printed at least eleven sheets (B-M2®) and the Ledger makes it very probable that he printed twelve (i.e. N® as well). {Again, ledger A confirms that Bowyer printed sheets B through N; see also Checklist 1825.} The fifth edition of 1733 for C. Davis and A. Lyon in 12° does not seem to have been printed by Bowyer.

8. The History of Charles XII.... The sixth edition. With a compleat index. [Bowyer ornament no. 163 {178}, 20x23 mm.] London: Printed for C. Davis ... A. Lyon ... MDCCXXXV. 12°. A-P!?+frontispiece. (15 sheets.) Copy seen: B.M. 010761. a. 12. Ledger fo. 106": received 60 reams of demy, 3,800 copies, first delivered January 1734-5. Bowyer printed all this edition, as the Ledger indicates. ‘Iwo Bowyer ornaments are used,

one on the title. I have not seen the seventh edition, which presumably was not printed by Bowyer. It may of course have been a reissue.

g. The History of Charles XII. (8th edition.) London, Printed for C. Davis. 1755. Large 12°. Dealer’s copy seen. Ledger fo. 142: 12°, 15 sheets at 125. a sheet [for composition], 1,000 copies, first delivered 27 July 1755. Emonson Papers fo. 97+1: the charge for printing was £21. (See Bodleian MSS. Eng. misc. c. 141.)

Bowyer printed the whole fifteen sheets; two of his ornaments are used. ‘The total printing charge per sheet for this edition works out at £1.85. made up of 125. for composing, 25. for reading, 45.84. for press-work, and gs.4d. for Bowyer’s share. Bowyer’s charges and methods of arriving at them were about this time in fact very like Samuel Richardson’s, as shown by William Sale in his Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (Cornell U.P., 1950).

10. Letters concerning the English Nation.... [Bowyer ornament no. 157 {174}, 27x40

mm.] London, Printed for C. Davis ... A. Lyon ... MDCCXXXIII. 8°. A-S8 (18 sheets). Ay is a cancel. Copy seen: B.M. 792. c. 6. Ledger fo. 26": 18% sheets [sic] demy, 2,000 copies, plus cancel leaf, first delivered 21 July 1733. Bowyer printed the whole work; twelve of his ornaments are used. The translation, said to be by John Lockman, preceded the French edition by nine months. Nichols lists neither this item nor the next as Bowyer’s work. {Item 11 is listed: Literary anecdotes, ii. 54.}

ir. Lettres Ecrites de Londres sur les Anglois et autres sujets. Par M. D. V"™* [Bowyer ornament no. 146 {169}, 25x26 mm.] A Basle, MDCCXXXIV. 8°. "A4 A-P® Q4 (16 sheets). Copies seen: B.N. Z 15298; Z Bengesco 248; B.M. 10348. b. 9.

(Bengesco no. 1558.) Ledger fo. 26": Ditto in French, 16 sheets crown, 1,500 copies, first delivered 26 March 1734.

Printed 1n London 39 Bowyer printed the whole of this edition, which contains thirteen of his ornaments. There was never any secret about the London origin of this edition: see Bengesco 1558 or the critical edition by Gustave Lanson (Paris, 1909).

12. La Mottraye, Aubrey de: Historical and critical remarks on the History of Charles XII.... design’d as a supplement to that work. In a letter to the author ... Translated from the French. London, Printed for T. Warner. 1732. 8°. A-F8+frontispiece (6 sheets). Copies seen: B.N. Z Bengesco 214; B.M. 610. g. 12. Ledger fo. 27: 1,000 copies demy, first delivered 24 April 1732.

This was reissued in 1732 as a second edition. The Remarks, or its French original, are often found bound with editions of Charles XII in French or English.

BLANK PAGE

& Review of: D. F. McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712

The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712: a bibliographical study. Vol. 1: Organization and policy of the Cambridge University Press; Vol. II: [The records]. D. F. McKenzie. Cambridge, at the University Press, 1966. Vol. I: xvi+ 423 pp. + 8 plates + 4 inset tables; Vol. II: x + 382 pp.

NEW province has been won for bibliography by Professor McKenzie’s conquest,

A in imperial octavo, of the records of the Cambridge University Press 1696-1712. But possession entails humility. No longer may bibliographers, with both eyes on the printed object, hope so confidently to penetrate the secrets of its production. They must learn to frame their hypotheses in a wider context of historical evidence, or failing this, practise a new scepticism. In recent years analysis of the printed book as physical object has been taken about as far as it will go, witness Professor Hinman’s great study, based on the evidence of damaged type, of the printing and proof-reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare. So much indeed has been done with the hard facts of type and paper that analytical bibliographers have been inclined to look down on the collateral evidence of printers’ records and the like as ‘not truly bibliographical,’ not capable of demonstration. This narrowing of focus has licensed the human tendency, as Bacon puts it, ‘to suppose the existence of more order and regularity’ in the printing process than really existed. A closer approach to reality is now made possible by Dr. McKenzie’s study in depth of a remarkably detailed and comprehensive body of collateral evidence, covering the output over some fifteen years of a recognizably representative English printinghouse. The Cambridge records, presented whole in volume II, are analysed and inter-

preted with such rigour and to such purpose as to set a new standard and give a new impetus to bibliographical research. + {The unsourced quotation and the term collateral evidence come from Fredson Bowers, Principles of bibliographical description, 1949 (p. 33). Bowers, a bibliographical giant of this century, pre-eminently championed the cause of intellectual rigour in bibliographical analysis and description. He strenuously discouraged any tendency to treat as all one the evidence extracted from the as it were laboratory examination of the printed object and the all-too-human testimony of related documentation such as printers’ and publishers’ records. ‘Collateral’ in his vocabulary implied not only in the strict sense ‘running side by side, parallel’ (and hence arguably of equal rank), but ‘lying aside from the main subject ... subordinate’ (Shorter Oxford Dictionary, second edition, 1936, Collateral A 1 and 3). It was D. F. McKenzie, himself brought up in the school of Greg and Bowers, who first showed the importance of giving equal if distinct attention to the collateral evidence of printers’ records. By his masterly study of the Cambridge University Press in the early eighteenth-century he expanded the boundaries of what might be considered truly bibliographical, as he has continued to do to the present day.} Originally published in A4UMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, 27 (1967), 108-15. Reprinted by permission.

AI

42 Review of D. F. McKenzie The most important lesson comes from the demonstration of the obvious but hitherto disregarded fact of concurrent production. Authors who complain that their book is taking too long to pass through the press forget that a printer always has other jobs on the go at the same time. These must be kept moving in their production units comprising formes of type and edition sheets, in such a way as to make economical use of men and materials and to satisfy the various demands of the customers. The result is inevitably a complex pattern of production, which is most easily maintained by a flexible use of labour. At Cambridge, and predictably elsewhere, broadly speaking, any compositor may be given any copy to set, and may be working on several books at a time. Similar versatility is shown by the pressmen. There is no attempt to restrict the printing of a particular work to any one compositor and press-crew.

This complex organization of work cannot be inferred from inspection of the finished product, for instance by charting variations in the width of the compositor’s measure or the number and recurrence of skeleton formes. Conversely, the printing of a particular book cannot be fully understood apart from the others being produced at the same time, and information about these is seldom available. Faced with this difficulty the bibliographer must both advance and retreat. He must go on to find out all he can about what happened in the printing-houses of the past. This requires, following Dr. McKenzie’s lead, a systematic exploitation of extant printers’ and publishers’ records. The Cambridge findings, and their extension to the London trade, are borne out for instance by preliminary study of a recently discovered ledger from the Bowyer Press, which chronicles for the 1730s, in periods of from one to four weeks, work done and prices charged by compositors and pressmen. Work patterns are more complex at the bigger and busier London house, but in broad outline the picture is unchanged. {The insight is further developed by McKenzie in ‘Printers of the mind: some notes on bibliographical theories and printing-house practices’, Studies in bibliography, 22 (1969), 1-75, and by K. I. D. Maslen, in ‘Masters and men’ (reprinted below). See also the Introductory Commentary to The Bowyer Ledgers, and in particular p- xxv.}

On the other hand, since such knowledge must remain fragmentary, the bibliographer will have to exercise greater caution in interpreting what facts there are. He must learn to be content with half-knowledge, more simply expressed, with no small advantage to the common reader. Dr. McKenzie does not turn aside to point such morals, as I have rather crudely done, but is concerned that what emerges from his exhaustive study of the evidence should have unchallengeable authority. His achievement is admirable, whether viewed as an impeccable presentation of voluminous records, a bibliographical study relating these to the printed books and to the findings of modern scholarship, or an institutional history of the cradle years of the Cambridge University Press. The Press records go back to 1696, when the idea of a university printing-house was first mooted, with the backing of Richard Bentley. It was not to publish on its own account as a modern university press, but to print to order, more correctly than the London trade or the local printer cared to do, works that would reflect credit on the

University. Printing started in 1698, under the able management of the Dutchman

“Lhe Cambridge University Press, 1696-1712" 43 Cornelius Crownfield, who remained master for more than forty years. By 1712 a very

creditable output had been realised, with the second edition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1713) still in the press. Nevertheless, as the initial impetus was lost, the press gradually followed the university into a decline, made inevitable by crippling limitations to operation, which were not remedied until the 1740s. The trouble lay in a University deal with the Stationers’ Company, by which the printing-house was debarred from engaging in the more profitable lines of trade, without gaining an appropriate share of the compensation. As a result the Press was not during this period a fully representative commercial press in either the range or scale of its activities. Dr. McKenzie is fully aware of this, and chooses for deepest study work done in the early years of greatest and most profitable activity, in order to validate comparison with the London trade.

The presentation of sources in volume II is a model of its kind, complete and faithful (random checks confirm this), without being fussy. Type-facsimile smooths irregularities in the manuscript and saves the reader having to decipher, as he would in photographic facsimile, such a word as friske¢ in ten variant spellings—never once as today. The fifty-four column index justifies Dr. McKenzie’s hope that it might serve as an additional commentary. Scavenging reviewers are notoriously drawn to the tail of a book, but I found nothing to sweep out here. And, apart from the names and titles, there is a fascinating range of entries on equipment alone: packcord, pails, painters’ bills, pales (palings?), pan (see also pot), paper (bills for carriage; brown, for wrapping; purchased), paper-boards, -poles, -press, -windows—just to take the first few entries under P. The records reproduced in full for the period 1696-1712 are the First Minute Book of the Curators, the Vice-Chancellor’s Accounts, the Annual Press Accounts, and most important and abundant, the Vouchers, receipted bills or receipts for work done by tradesmen and by the employees of the Press. One might ask why Dr. McKenzie stops at 1712, since even the slender First Minute Book has entries for 1713-14, whilst the Vouchers run on for many years. True, the records are fuller and more informative during the first ten years or so, and there is a convenient gap in the Press Accounts 1713-17. But the most important reason is that it was necessary to delimit the material to be studied in depth, since Dr. McKenzie is that most responsible kind of editor who refuses merely to expose material for others to puzzle over. Nor is he content to isolate a few bright finds. The commentary in volume I contains the complementary work of analysis and synthesis, by which the tremendous undistinguished mass of fact is systematically investigated and made intelligible, always with the dominating purpose of learning all that is possible about the complex and obscure organization and operation of a print-

ing-house of the past. Even the first two chapters and the last, on Establishing the Press, Sites and Buildings, and Policy and Finance, where the institutional history will most gladden those interested in the origins of a great learned Press, are informed by this overriding concern with function. One tiny example is the brilliant demonstration of the arrangement of the windows which lined one wall of the composing-room in the original printing-house, and were repapered annually on the occasion of the Waygoose feast.

44 Review of McKenzie, “Cambridge University Press” The chapter on Equipment and Materials takes the sensible form of a brief explanation of the purpose or function of the item in question, a summary of the present state of knowledge, drawing most aptly on Moxon’s manual of printing, published in 1683, to which manuals for the next 150 years owe so much, and finally consideration of the Cambridge evidence to see how it agrees with or modifies what is already known. This tour of the printing-house, a master-lesson for those who have cut their teeth on Part I of McKerrow’s Introduction to bibliography for literary students, is also a preparation for the deeper analysis which is soon to follow. To close the next chapter on the Servants of the Press, questions of rates of pay and incomes of compositors, correctors, and pressmen are answered with a new authority.

The most detailed analysis however has gone into the chapter on Organization and Production, which prompted my opening remarks on concurrent printing. Some notion of the range and precision of investigation can be imagined from the headings of a few of the twenty tables in which the findings are condensed: Compositors’ output in ens 1699-1700 and 1701-2, Pressmen’s output 1699-1700 and 1701-2, Schedule of work performed by compositors, for the same period, and above all a two-dimensional representation of work done by compositors and pressmen in three monthly periods late in

vor. Dr. McKenzie would be first to admit that the Cambridge material has not permitted the ultimate in work-study, but never before have there been analyses anywhere near so comprehensive, and refined, and incontrovertible. One major section is still to note: the chronological bibliography of 274 items printed 1698-1712, with production details from the records sorted out and systematical-

ly set down. A description of each book in approved Bowers formula is followed by notes of (a) size of edition, charges per sheet for composition, presswork, correction and overheads, and price per sheet to the booksellers, and (b) a sheet by sheet tabulation

of its progress through the press. Items are listed in the order in which printing was begun, insofar as the vouchers enable this to be precisely stated. The edition of Newton, for instance, is entered under 24.9.1709, although a specimen sheet has been run off early in 1708, and printing was not completed until 1713. At first voucher dating is as precise as one expects to get: they were normally prepared weekly and represent the successive wage claims of compositors and press-crews. ‘This is a further reason why the detailed work studies are based on the earlier operations of the press. But as time goes by the vouchers were made out at increasingly longer intervals of up to six months or a year at a time. Vouchers for such long periods can no longer be seen as original wage claims, and no doubt were written up by Crownfield purely for audit purposes. Dating in such cases is much less informative. Still, it was the very requirement of audit that makes the Cambridge records, in comparison with the customer accounts which the trade was most concerned to keep, unusually full, and in the hands of an editor so thorough and perceptive as Dr. McKenzie, remarkably revealing.

& New Editions of Pope's Essay on Man 1745-48 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL limbo, lying between Pope’s ‘deathbed’ edition in quarto of

A the Essay on Man, published February 1744, and the monumental Works of 1751, holds five innocent small octavo editions of the Essay: twins dated 1745, a third 1746, and two 1748. The first and the fourth, termed 1745* and 1748" respectively, are here described for the first time.1 In addition, details of the printing of the first four editions by William Bowyer the younger are given from the Bowyer ledgers recently discovered in the library of the Grolier Club, and from the Bowyer paper stock ledger in the Bodleian Library. ‘The fifth edition too may have been printed by Bowyer. Contrary to the usual belief, neither of the 1745 editions corresponds with the ‘/ittle Essay on Man, which Pope describes in his letter to Bowyer of 23 Feb. 1743/4, as having been printed jointly by Wright and Bowyer.” The series was evidently begun by Warburton after Pope’s death on 30 May 1744. Pope’s remarks prove puzzling after all. {The solution to the puzzle, the result of unpublished research by R. C. Noble, is announced in David Foxon, Pope and the early eighteenth-century book trade: the Lyell Lectures 1975-1976, revised and edited by James McLaverty, 1991, p. 149, and see p.228,

note 14. What Pope referred to as the ‘ttle Essay on Man’ surfaced some four years later in 1748, and corresponds to my fifth edition (1748° in this article; The Bowyer Ledgers, Checklist 3489, listed under 23 August 1748). ‘The words in Foxon-McLaverty call for quotation at length: ‘A fine piece of detective work by Richard Noble has identified these sheets as eventually appearing in a volume issued in 1748 (Foxon P873); the first two sheets, B-C®, were printed by Bowyer before the quarto [Checklist 3144] was printed, but sheets D-L® were printed by Wright using the quarto as copy. It was completed with prelims and M? (which reprinted the last leaf of the Essay and added the Universal Prayer); this last sheet is apparently the one entered in the Bowyer printing ledgers (iv, fos 74”, 114" [i.e. ledger pages Bs14 and 593 in The Bowyer Ledgers|) on 23 August 1748.’ The Checklist entry independently provides these ledger references, but identifies only the later printed leaves, a1-3 (the prelims) and M‘4, as Bowyer’s. No ledger reference has been found to Bowyer’s printing in 1743 of sheets B and C. However, ledger B has lost some entries through fire damage. (Iam grateful to Dr McLaverty for supplying details of Noble’s welcome discovery, which remedies a deficiency in my original article.) The 1. 1 am grateful to David Foxon and David G. Esplin for pointing out the existence of these editions and for other much valued help. 2. Correspondence, ed. George Sherburn (Clarendon Press, 1956), iv, 501-02: “Let Wright immediatly send you in what he has done, gathered, of the /itt/e Essay on Man. As | remember one or two Sheets at

the beginning were first done by you, so that you must put them & his together. he has finished it, but possibly a Title leaf may be wanting to the whole which pray Supply, & have it ready gatherd.’ The equation was made by R. H. Griffith, Alexander Pope: a Bibliography (University of Texas, 1922, 27), who lists the second of these editions as item 607. Originally published in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 62 (1968), 177-88. Copyright ©

1968 The Bibliographical Society of America. Reprinted by permission.

45

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Z -ve Sa) cris wrt 4 cE? os, : aA: pe Ps ~ ~ = aS . Both anecdotes plus Hutchins’s mistake about Taylor are retailed by Angus Ross in his edition of Robinson Crusoe (Penguin English Library, 1965, Introduction, pp. 10-11). Such stories have encouraged superlatives by implying that the demand must have been extensive indeed to have produced such a profit for Taylor and reached such an audience. Neither gossip nor knowledge of the number and frequency of editions will tell us how many copies of Robinson Crusoe came on to the market in 1719. But some new facts have come to light in a Bowyer printing ledger relating to three of the six 1719 1. R. D. Mayo, The English novel in the magazines 1740-1815, 1962, p. 58: Mayo uses the term ‘sensational’, but does not infer a ‘large general appetite’ for novels and romances before 1740. 2. Keith I. Maslen, “The printers of Robinson Crusoe’, The Library, v, 7 (1952), 124-31 {reprinted above}. 3. Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 1812-16, 1. 180-81 n. 4. Observations, anecdotes, and characters of books and men, ed. James M. Osborn, 1966, no. ror. Cf. Ian Watt, ‘Robinson Crusoe as myth’, Essays in criticism, t (1951), 112, n. 3: ‘made his fortune by it’.

5. Robinson Crusoe examin’d and criticts’d, ed. Dottin, 1923, pp. 71-72, quoted sceptically by Ian Watt, The rise of the novel, 1957 (Peregrine Books, 1963), p. 42.

Originally published in The Library, v, 24 (1969), 145-50. Copyright © 1969 The Bibliographical Society. Reprinted by permission.

57

58 Edition Quantities for “Robinson Crusoe”, 1719 editions. The second and two ‘third ‘editions, in which Bowyer had a hand, were printed in quantities of 1,000 copies a time. The ledger entry follows. Mr William Taylor Dr 1719S Mays For printing sheets T V X Y of 2d Edit. of Robinson

Crufoe No. 1000 at 205 per sheet am to 4——

June 1 For printing sheets X Y Z Aa of the 3d Editn of Do.

No. 1000 [i.e. the ‘43rd’ ‘lion’ edn]? 4—-—

[ June] 25 For printing 6 sheets (viz. HI K L MN) of the

4th Edit. of Do. No. 1000 [‘3rd’ ‘phoenix’ ] 6 — — 10 — —

Bowyer’s share of the second and two ‘third’ editions is exactly as determined in my 1952 note, based solely on the examination of type. But I then guessed less happily that there were perhaps 10,000 copies for the whole six editions, comparable with the reported number for Gulliver’s travels. However, although the figures before us for three

editions have little predictive value for the other three editions, the initial success of Robinson Crusoe would seem not to have matched that of Gulliver's travels, of which there were 2,500 copies of the third printing in December 1726, within two months of publication, and 2,000 for the ‘second’ edition (i.e. the fourth authorized printing) in May 1727.8 Still six editions in less than a year, even if each were of no more than 1,000

copies, constitute a quite exceptional publishing record. (1 postulate below that the other three editions also were of 1,000 copies.) The motive for division of work amongst several printers was presumably haste to satisfy an unexpectedly large demand. But why the quickly repeated orders of only 1,000 copies a time? It would have taken only about one press-day to run off say another 1,000 copies of each of Bowyer’s four to six sheets, and Bowyer at this time may have had five presses. May one imagine a cautious bookseller trying to exploit an uncertain market? For the first four months Taylor had this market to himself, and sold maybe 4,000 copies of the first four editions. However, in early August the first copies of the ‘fourth’ (i.e. fifth) edition had to compete with T. Cox’s abridged piracy, and the volume of sales after that date cannot even be guessed, although sales of the authorized ‘fourth’ may have been slowed down not only by piracies, but by the newspaper serialization in the Original London post, beginning 7 October 1719.? A subsequent slowingdown in demand for the authorized editions may be inferred from the title-page dates of later editions: the fifth 1720, sixth 1722, and seventh 1726. It must be admitted that speculation concerning the rate and volume of sale of the Taylor editions still does not 6. Grolier Club accession number 19471 {ledger A}, f. 41’. The Grolier Bowyer ledgers are on loan to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Bibliographical Society proposes to publish facsimiles of this and other Bowyer printing ledgers, edited by the present writer. 7. So designated by L. L. Hubbard, “Text changes in the Taylor editions of Robinson Crusoe with remarks on the Cox editions’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 20 (1926), 27-29. 8. Bowyer Paper Stock Ledger, f. 36": see Plate 1 in Herbert Davis, “Bowyer’s paper stock ledger’, The Library, Vv, 6 (1951), following p. 82 {reprinted above; see p. 10}. g. R. M. Wiles, Serial publication in England before 1750, 1956, p. 27.

Edition Quantities for “Robinson Crusoe’, 1719 59 tell us how many and what kind of people read Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Its early popu-

larity is revealed not merely by the number of editions, nor even by the number of copies printed in book form, piracies included—if this could be known exactly—but by

all these plus the fact that this work was one of the first long pieces of fiction to be

serialized in English newspapers. ,

Two other pieces of information in the ledger entries call for brief comment. First, the account is made out to William Taylor. This should not be taken to prove that he was the sole proprietor, though this is very likely. {Entries in the auction catalogue of William Taylor’s copyrights ‘confirm Mr. Maslen’s supposition that Taylor was the sole owner of the copyright’ (D. F. Foxon, ‘More on Rodinson Crusoe, 1719’, The Library, v, 25, [1970], 57).} Taylor could have been acting for the other four considerable book-

sellers named in the first newspaper advertisement: alternatively, there is evidence in the Bowyer ledgers to suggest that a bookseller could nominate the printer for that proportion of a work which he owned.!° On the other hand, ‘Taylor alone is named in the Stationers’ register entry of 23 April 1719 as the owner of Part I, and I take it that the newspaper advertisement simply does not reveal Taylor’s private business. Secondly, the ledger entries show that Bowyer charged Taylor 20s. a sheet for printing his share of Robinson Crusoe. ‘This is a standard London charge for pica octavo, working out at 7s.6d. for composition, 15.3. for correction (whether a corrector was employed or not), 45.8d. for press-work on 1,000 sheets, plus the master’s 50 per cent. The cost of printing six editions each of twenty-three sheets would have amounted to £138. Paper for these at say us. a ream, reckoning two perfected reams to each edition sheet, would cost another £151.165. However, one is still far from knowing ‘Taylor’s total costs, receipts, and profit. Other costs would include purchase of the author’s copy, no doubt for much less than the £200 Swift is said to have asked for Gulliver’s travels, advertising, chiefly in newspapers, cartage, trade binding, and Taylor’s overheads. Binding alone of those copies Taylor sold over his own counter would cost a pretty penny, the cost per unit being little short of that for paper and print—perhaps not less than the 15.3d. a copy in calf charged by the binder James Cook in 1744 (Bowyer Paper Stock Ledger, f. 45). On the other hand, Taylor would gross much less than the 41,500 theoretically possible from the sale of say 6,000 copies at 5s. His wholesale price in quires, or bound, to the other four booksellers named in the first newspaper advertisement would be substantially below the selling price. My own guess, for which I take no credit, is that Taylor’s profit for the six editions was close to half the legendary 41,000. The main value of this little exercise is rather to show the severe limits to the usefulness of such discrete pieces of information even under some pressure. How does an edition quantity of 1,000 for Robinson Crusoe compare with the numbers printed of other works of the period? Figures of over 10,000 quoted by Ian Watt are admittedly extremes (Rise, pp. 37-38). At the Bowyer Press however edition quantities of 1,000 are more common than any other. In the following table the figures for 10. J. R. Moore, Checklist of the writings of Daniel Defoe, 1960, no. 412: it is noted that the first edition

was advertised as ‘Printed for’ W. Taylor, J. Graves, T. Harbin, J. Brotherton, and W. Meadows, and inferred that publication was ‘undertaken jointly by [these] five considerable booksellers’.

60 Edition Quantities for “Robinson Crusoe”, 1719 Robinson Crusoe may be compared with those for other works of more than one sheet printed at the Bowyer Press in 1717-19. They are taken from the index to Bowyer’s Ledger A (Grolier 19471). Edition

quantity 1717-18 O.s. 1718-19 1719-20

Over 2,000 8 6 4 2,000 4 5 2 1,500 I 7 6 1,250 2 5 I 1,000 1313 1414 17 750 8 500 500 3 175 IO Under 4 4 44 7 58

(five of the above were within 100 of the quantity listed)

Note first that 1,000 was the commonest quantity: also that each year two-thirds or more of the total number of items were printed in quantities of 1,000 or less. Of eight items of fiction, all were of 1,000, the same for the fifth edition of Aphra Behn’s Loveletters between a nobleman and his sister (1718) as for the Memoirs of Mons. L. M. D. L. F:

(i.e. le marquis de la Fare), translated by Hilkiah Bedford—this I have not seen.1™ Poetry by contrast ran to extremes, from 250 for Allan Ramsay's Richy and Sandy printed in 1718, to 1,910 copies of Pope’s I/ad, volumes v and vi, and another 2,500 of the whole work in duodecimo, not to mention 2,500 of Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, second

edition, all these printed in 1719. From these figures poetry stands out as the most popular kind of imaginative literature. Such large numbers for Pope make it difficult for us to see Defoe as breaking open a charmed circle of ‘Augustans writing for a small, closed, homogeneous audience’ (Ross, p. 11). Plays too were often printed in numbers greater than 1,000: in 1716 2,500 were printed of Gay’s Three hours after marriage, and in 1720 2,000 of Farquhar’s Works, fifth edition, with 1,000 extra of several of the plays. But over 2,000 came chiefly theological and educational works: there were pamphlet salvoes in the Bangorian controversy by Law, Sherlock, and others in up to 4,000 coples, 5,000 copies of the seventh edition of Robert Nelson’s Great duty of frequenting the Christian sacrifice (1718), reprints of collected sermons by Bisse (3,000), and Burkitt (2,250), school texts of Juvenal (4,000) and Ovid (2,000), and Schrevelius’s Graeco-

Latin dictionary (6,o00—the top figure for these three years). Far above these numbers, but for works of which Bowyer printed only one sheet, for the Company of Stationers, are 30,000 for the Sternhold and Hopkins Psa/ms in 24° (sheet B only), and 9,000 of an almanac, the Ladies diary, both totals quoted for 1719. Comparison with other novels printed by the Bowyers again suggests that the edi-

tion quantities for Robinson Crusoe, in contrast to the number and frequency of editions, were nothing out of the ordinary. The Bowyers, father and son, printed rather 10a. {See Checklist 529 (18 Feb 19) La Fare, Charles-Auguste de. Memoirs and reflections upon the

principal passages of the reign of Lewis the XIVth, 1719, copy British Library.}

Edition Quantities for “Robinson Crusoe”, 1719 61 few novels: thirty or so in two twelve-year periods, 1718-29 and 1760-71. But the edition quantities for this miscellaneous group are almost constant at 1,000 for the earlier period, and little less so at 750 and §00 in the 1760s. From 1718-29 there were eight novels at 1,000, and one at 1,250; beyond this were only the two editions of Gulliver's travels at 2,000 and 2,500. From 1760-71 there were seven at 500, including Frances Brooke, The history of Emily Montague, 1770, and Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, volume g, 1767; five at 750, including Frances Sheridan’s Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, second edition, 1761; two at 1,000, and only Fielding’s Tom Jones, sixth edition, 1765, at 1,250.

Here one might find support for Ian Watt’s contention that the eighteenth-century novel was ‘not, strictly speaking, a popular literary form’, even if one could neither agree

or disagree with him that it was ‘closer to the economic capacity of the middle-class additions to the reading public than were many of the established and respectable forms of literature and scholarship’ (Rise, p. 43) without knowing what sort of person bought these comparatively small editions. But this would be to ignore the new magazines and circulating libraries from the 1740s on, and to assume the one market and the one fiction-reading public. On the contrary, the existence of multiple and undemarcated reading publics is inferred by Mayo from the existence of many specialized magazines between 1740 and 1815, in which he counted over 1,300 novels and novelle.41_ And in 1760 for instance appeared Smollett’s Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, said to be the first well-known English novel specially written for magazine serialization. Perhaps in the end we are not far from our original admiration for the early success of Robinson Crusoe. We see that publishers like Taylor were disinclined to risk unusu-

ally large edition numbers for works that might go out of fashion. But the frequency of editions still counts for something, and here Robinson Crusoe ranks with Gulliver’s travels, with Richardson’s Pamela (1741), five editions in ten months; and Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749), four editions also in ten months.”

u. The English novel, pp. 3, 1, ete. 12. Wm. M. Sale, Jr., Samuel Richardson: master printer, 1950, p. 198; W. L. Cross, The history of Henry Fielding, 1918, 111, 316-19.

BLANK PAGE

& “Drawing Poor Robin’ C RAWING Poor Robin’, an initially puzzling annual entry during the 1730s in the ID Bowyer printing ledger Grolier 19472, turns out to refer to the process of printing in red and black.t The term drawing in this application is not found in O.E.D., nor in the likely printer’s grammars,” although Stower (1808) comes near. The meaning of the entry is clarified elsewhere in the ledger: under composition are noted such variants as “Drawing the Title’, ‘Drawing the Title red’, and ‘Drawing 1 form twice’; under press-work ‘title red and black’, and for Poor Rodin ‘underlaying and frisket 5s.’, and sheet ‘A red & black Friskets & raising 5s.’. From these entries drawing is seen to denote the process by which the compositor draws out or extracts the letters for printing in red, so that the black can be worked off, to print the red, either before or

after the black, the pressman raises the red letters above the black in the forme by underlaying, hangs a new frisket, and pulls the red lightly. The various methods of doing this are summarized by R. B. McKerrow in his Introduction to bibhography, 1928, ‘on printing in two or more colours’, pp. 335-36. Poor Robin is of course the almanac, whose title sheet A in red and black throughout was printed at the Bowyer Press for much of the eighteenth century. Draw as it is used a score of times 1730-39 in this Bowyer printing ledger thus falls under the O.F.D. definition, s.v. III. 49. “To extract something from’: to draw the title is, in printing parlance to extract letters to be printed in red from the title forme (‘with that from which the contents are taken as object’). In this context Stower in his Printer’s Grammar (1808), p. 369, uses draw out: the compositor ‘draws out the red lines’, corresponding to O.E.D., s.v. VII. 87a “To pull out’.

Draw is used in other technical senses by Moxon and later writers on printing. Moxon defines “Drawing the tympans or frisket ... as the covering and pasting on of vellom, forrels or parchment upon the frames’ (Mechanick Exercises, 1683-4, ed. H. Davis and H. Carter, p. 277). Draw is glossed by Savage, Dictionary of the art of printing (1841), p. 208, as the accidental drawing out of loose letters by the ink balls or rollers when a forme is working at press: when this happens the letters ‘are said to draw’. ‘DRAWN SHEETS’ in Savage’s next entry refers to wrong sheets taken out of a gathering in the course of collation. {See the entry under ‘Drawing (red title)’ in the Topical Index to The Bowyer Ledgers. Because this and some other entries in the Topical Index are indicative (i.e. selec1. Grolier 19472 {ledger C} is on loan to the Bodleian Library from the Library of the Grolier Club, New York. I am grateful for permission to use material from this ledger. 2. But see ‘Drawing.— Lifting lines from a page or forme for a second printing in another colour—the

blank space being filled with its equivalent.’ C. T. Jacobi, Printer’s Vocabulary (London, 1888), p. 35 LE.G.S.].

Originally published in Notes and Queries (1970), 454. Copyright © 1970 Oxford University Press. | Reprinted by permission.

63

64 Drawing Poor Robin’ tive), these further references to drawing or red titles in ledger C are given: C1443, C1450, C1461-2, C1473, C1494, C1497, Crso5-11, Cr5x7, C1541, C1544, C1546, C1583, C1590.}

S ‘Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 INGLE letters of the alphabet, not signatures or catchwords, disfigure the foot of

S certain pages in books London printed by Samuel Aris 1730-32. As each book

contains only a few letters, upper or lower-case, placed one in each forme or sheet with occasional omissions, their function as press-figures is readily supposed. In Eustace Budgell, 4 Letter to Cleomenes (1731) occur the letters C J R W: in one copy C or C in 19 formes, J in 5 formes, R or R in 13 formes, W or w in 5 formes—other copies vary slightly.1 No fewer than seven letters, C FI J RT W, are used in Budgell’s Memoirs of

the life and character of the late Earl of Orrery (1732). These letters plus g (?), 1, p, and T appear in others of the seven books printed by Aris that bear press letters; J is found in all seven, C and W in five books. One has evidently stumbled across another of the ‘many idiosyncratic numbers or marks adopted in some books ... [involving] the use of letters perhaps to indicate pressmen’s names’.? One notices the considerable number and haphazard selection of letters, the disproportionate use of some, and the instability of their grouping. Besides three regulars, C, J, and W, another six or seven letters more occasionally appear, whilst some formes or sheets are unlettered. No doubt a larger sample would reveal more letters and other patterns. From such tangible evidence in the finished product one is unable to infer the total number either of presses or pressmen at work, since work at half-press cannot be distinguished from work at full-press requiring a second unmarked crew-member; nor can the absence of letters on occasions be taken to mean that no other presses or men are concerned. However, something may be made of the facts by comparison with press-figures and related work patterns at the Bowyer Press for the same years 1730-32. Details of press-work are taken from a recently discovered Bowyer ledger, which records work done and prices charged by compositors and pressmen for the period 1730-39.3 Three to five presses were in constant use at the Bowyer Press from March 1730 to March 1732. Occasionally there were six and rarely seven in use in any one pay period of two to four weeks. At these presses wrought from six to twelve men, usually but not always working in pairs. At one time or another altogether eight presses were in operation, corresponding with the figures 1-8 evidenced in the printed sheets. At the Bowyer Press, then, generally speaking, figures denote a press, and identify work done at that press, 1. The first part, comprising the Introduction and distinguished by a separate set of signatures, was printed by Richardson—see Wm. M. Sale jr, Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (1950), item 95. 2. D. F. McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712 (1966), I, 131.

3. Grolier Club accession number 19472 {ledger C}, on loan to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This is a compositors’ and pressmen’s check-book running 1730-39. The Bibliographical Society (London) proposes to publish facsimiles of this and other Bowyer printing ledgers, edited by the present writer. Originally published in Studies in Bibliography, 23 (1970), 119-26. Copyright © 1970 by the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia. Reprinted by permission.

65

66 Press’ Letters: Samuel Arts 1730-32 either by a partnership, or occasionally by one man, who regularly wrought there for a period of weeks or month. Some anomalies, apparent or real, may relate to the frequent changes in personnel and their movements within the shop. During these two years no fewer than nineteen press-men were employed at the Bowyer Press, some for periods of only a few weeks, others during the whole time. Similarly at some presses the crew remained constant for many months at a time, whilst

at others there were changes every few weeks. These phenomena are a function of many variables, including most obviously the going and coming of workmen, either permanently or temporarily, the amount of work offering, and breakdowns of equipment. At the Bowyer Press, as no doubt at any other commercial press of this or other times, frequent changes from press to press and of partnership produce complex and

shifting work-patterns, not easily described and in fact impossible to infer from pat- , terns of press-figures found in the finished product. It is unlikely that the ten or so ‘press’-letters in books printed by Aris—these having been identified as his productions by imprint, types, and ornaments—refer to actual presses. From the little known of his business one would expect him to have fewer presses than the elder Bowyer, recognized at the time as a major London printer, and even the preeminent William Strahan boasts forty years later of no more than ‘7, 8, or 9 Presses ... constantly employed’ in his commercial printing-house.* The seven pressletters in Budgell’s Memoirs of the Earl of Orrery mentioned above may be taken to reflect changes of press-crews. Such changes are shown by the Bowyer records to be not uncommon in the life of a press. It is intrinsically probable then that the haphazard letters refer to men, perhaps by the initial of their surname. It is not hard to believe that by comparison with Bowyer’s nineteen pressmen Aris employed twelve men over roughly the same period, as delimited very approximately for Aris by title-page dates. ‘The numerical comparison however can give little idea of the relative size and output of Aris’s establishment, since one cannot assume for this period either regular employment or optimum or even steady output per man. If only one knew the names of Aris’s pressmen 1730-32! The list of his apprentices given below is no help. Those apprentices out of their time before 1730 might well have taken jobs elsewhere, and in any case they are more likely to have been on the composing side, like Thomas Aris, later proprietor of the Birmingham Gazette. On the other hand, if any of the apprentices did help at press 1730-32, his labours, most likely as ‘second’, would not need to be marked by letter, because he would claim no wages at piece rates from his master. Press-letters as used by Aris have the same value as figures in alerting one to possibilities of reissue, reimpression, and divided printing, as evidenced by items 9, 14 and 15

described below. ,

Possibly insignificant are typographical variations in press-letters: the alternation between upper and lower case letters, changes in size of type, and the occasional use of italic instead of roman. Sometimes the choice seems to have been made from the case 4. Strahan to David Hall 15 June 1771, quoted R. A. Austen-Leigh, “William Strahan and his ledgers’, The Library, 1, 3 (1923), 272.

Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 67 nearest to hand, containing the type used in the text or the notes. Still it seems odd that in Budgell’s Memozrs of the Earl of Orrery only W, out of the seven press-letters used,

alternates between W and w or w. A similar variation in size of press-figures was noticed by J. D. Fleeman in respect of William Somerville’s The Chace (1735), which was

printed by Bowyer, but here on closer examination the variation seems to be without significance.°

Unlike figures, letters have one great inconvenience, that they may easily be confused with signatures and even catchwords, such as A and I. {Another is that letters are of varying widths; numerals being of a standard width would therefore be easier to alter in the case of reimpression at a different press.} This is surely why they are seldom encountered. But how ‘idiosyncratic’ was this use of letters? For Aris during 1730-32 it was a standard practice, since out of twelve octavos dated within these years and identified as coming from Aris’s press, seven are lettered; indeed for 1731-32 only one book is unlettered. Aris seems to have adopted the practice, or sanctioned it, some time in 1730. Daniel Waterland’s The nature, obligation, and efficacy, of the Christian Sacraments, considered, ‘Printed by Sam. Aris for John Crownfield’ (1730), is unmarked, but its Supplement, also dated 1730, is lettered. However, Budgell’s Letter to His Excellency Mr. Ulrick D Ypres (1731) is also unmarked. Title-page dates of course are no precise indication of the date of printing. Before 1730 the few books recognized as Aris’s, most belonging to 1727-28, have some sheets unmarked and others figured 1 or 3. After 1732 no books have been recognized as coming from Aris’s press, on the evidence of imprint or printer’s devices, of which Aris used at least two; by October 1734 he was dead. The above sample is too small to allow generalizations about the limits and extent of Aris’s use of press-letters.

It is worth noting that other printers in this period use letters, but in ways that | shall not try to explain. Bentham at Cambridge, as remarked by Dr. McKenzie, uses bd, 3-6, and 8 in a book of 1743, and examples of Parliamentary printing, Acts, Bills, and the King’s Speeches, by John Baskett 1726-51 bear the letters B/b, C/c, e, and figures 18. This is a complication to be added to the ‘many mysteries about press-figures yet to be solved’.®

The above examples, trivial in themselves, remind us that we need continually to ‘reconsider our ideas about the permissible variations in the early printer's routine’, and to revise and extend our notions of what is considered normal, since it is out of such

notions that our bibliographical and textual hypotheses are made.’ , I. BiocrapHicaL DeTAILs OF SAMUEL ARIS

SAMUEL ARIS printer, of Creed Lane 1720?-32?; bound 6 apprentices 6 Feb. 1720/1-1 Sept. 1730; died 1734. 5. ‘William Somervile’s “The Chace” ’, Papers of the Bibliographical Soctety of America, 58 (1964), 1-7, and

see G. T. Tanselle “The Recording of Press Figures’, The Library, v, 21 (1966), 322. 6. Tanselle, op.cit., p. 325. For one such work by Baskett see under 1725 in K. Povey, “Working to rule, 1600-1800: a study of pressmen’s practice’, The Library, v, 20 (1965), 39. 7. Fredson Bowers, Bibliography and Textual Criticism (1964), pp. 71 ff.

68 Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 This summary corrects The London Compositor (1947), p. 36, where Ellic Howe gives terminal dates 1725-39, and mentions only four apprentices. Fuller details follow. Marriage: 6 Feb. 1713/14 Saml Aris of precinct of White Friars single and Mary Whitledge of St. Martin Ludgate single by licence (Harleian Society Registers, vol. 63, St. Matthew, Friday Street). Children: eight from 2 April 1721 to 7 Feb. 1733/4, though of these apparently only three survived their parents: Mary (b. 26 Oct., bapt. 18 Nov. 1722), Samuel (b. 21 June, bapt. 12 July 1724), and Amy (b. 2 Feb., bapt. 7 Feb. 1733/4). The other children 1721-34 are Samuel bapt. 2 Apr. 1721, Catherine bapt. 7 Nov. 1725, Thomas bapt. 14 Feb. 1727/8, Catherine bapt. 27 July 1729, Ann bapt. 6 Sept. 1730 (Guildhall Library: Register of St Martins Ludgate). Death: presumed between 7 February and 17 October 1734, on which date was issued a commission to Charles Bennett ‘the guardian lawfully assigned to Prudence Bennett (his wife) Mary Aris and Saml Aris minors and Amy Aris an infant, children of Samuel Aris late of St Martin Ludgate London widower decd....’ (Admin. of Samuel Aris, PCC Admin Act Bk. 1734 f. 204, Somerset House). Queries: was Charles Bennett the apprentice named below, and was Prudence a daughter of a first marriage? J I owe the above information to M. A. Byrne of Exeter College, Oxford; its presentation my responsibility. Address: Creed Lane is attested in the Apprentice Registers and elsewhere from 1722, and may have been Aris’s only address as master. Creed Lane is said by Robert Seymour to have been ‘pestered with Carts and Carrs to Puddle-dock ... which makes it to be not overwell inhabited’ (Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 1734, p. 701). Bindings: 1. Robert Barlow, bd 6 Feb. 1720/1, free 5 Nov. 1728.

2. Thomas Aris, son of Thomas late citizen and barber surgeon of London deceased, bd 1 Oct. 1722, free 4 Nov. 1729. (See below). 3. James Claxton, bd 1 June 1725, turned over to Samuel Palmer 7 March 1731/2, free 7 Nov. 1732. 4. David Henry, bd 1 June 1725, free 5 Feb. 1739/40. 5. Samuel West, bd 2 Sept. 1729 for 8 years, and again 1 Sept. 1730. 6. Charles Bennett, late apprentice of Richard Harbin, 2 June 1730 turned over for the remainder

of his term (Stationers’ Company Apprentice Registers, Register of Freeman, and Calendar of Masters and Apprentices 1719-62). I have not found in the Company records mention of Aris before 1720/1. The last reference to

Samuel senior is dated 3 April 1739, when ‘Samuel Aris Son of Samuel late of Creed Lane London Printer deceased’ was bound ‘to Thomas Aris of Red Lyon Court in Fleetstreet London printer, the Consideration of £10 being paid by Samuel Birt. Thomas Aris’s address is earlier given as Jewin St. in bindings 7 Dec. 1731 to 5 Nov. 1734.

Thomas Aris’s last binding takes place on 3 Feb. 1740/1, which accords well enough with Plomer’s statement that Thomas began the Birmingham Gazette, first number 16 November 1741. In his Dictionary 1726-75 Plomer conflates the careers of Samuel senior and junior. {Details of Aris’s bindings accord with those given by D. F. McKenzie, Stationers’ Company apprentices 1701-1800, 1978.}

Il. Some Octravos PRINTED BY SAMUEL ARIS 1727-32

Attributions have been made on the basis of imprints, two score ornaments and printingtypes.

1.1727. BURNET (Thomas). De fide & officiis Christianorum liber posthumus. Typis S. A., impensis J. Hooke. Bodley (Vet. A4 e.357). Figure 3 on most sheets or formes.

Press’ Letters: Samuel Arts 1730-32 69 2. 1728. —— Editio secunda. Typis S. Aris, impensis J. Hooke. Bodley (8° B 454 Linc.). Figure 3 used once on I[4’. 3. —— Archaeologiae philosophicae. Editio secunda. Typis S. Aris, impensis J. Hooke. University of Otago. Figure 1 only in $ 2H-K and 2M. 4. 1730. —— A treatise concerning the state of departed souls. Trans. J. Dennis. Printed for John Hooke. Bodley (Vet. A4 e. 976). No figures.

5. —— WATERLAND (Daniel). Advice to a young student. Printed for John Crownfield. Bodley (G. P. 213). No figures. 6. —— Remarks upon Doctor Clarke’s Exposition of the Church-Catechism. [Device 25x38 mm, IMPRIM SAM ARIS] Printed for John Crownfield. Bodley (G.P. 858). No figures. 7. —— The nature, obligation, and efficacy, of the Christian Sacraments, considered ... By the author of the Remarks. Printed by Sam. Aris for John Crownfield. Bodley (G.P. 858). No figures.

8. —— Supplement to the treatise, intitled, The nature, obligation, and efficacy, of the Christian Sacraments, considered. Printed by Sam. Aris for John Crownfield. Bodley (G.P. 46). At B-K*. Press-letters: C4’-J, D4’-C, Ex’-J, F4’-g (?), H3°-T, I4’-c. g. 1731. BUDGELL (Eustace). A letter to Cleomenes King of Sparta. Printed for A. Moore. University of Otago no date, Bodley (Vet. A4 e. 1671 dated 1731, and 22863 e. 130 no date); ‘second’ edition not seen; ‘third’ edition Bodley (8° A.3.2. Jur.). Frontispiece, A-K® L* M?; [B]-[S]® a-e® £2. The first set of signatures ending at M were printed by Samuel Richardson—see no. 95 in Wm. M. Sale’s Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (1950). The title-page addition of the date constitutes a press-variant. In the tables below only disagreements with the copy in the left hand columns are noted.

$ Otago Bodl. ‘1731 Bod. 3rd’ $ Otago Bodl. 1731 Bod. ‘3rd’

[B} IN] RoC J [C] CC WJ[O] wC

(i) (0) G@ (0) @ (©) (1) (0) @) ©) @ ©)

[D] Rw [P} C R Ww R IE] RJ C[IR] [(Q] C R CJ [FF] — C J WwW IG] C C J J [S} — R [H] C RCJJbJ R aw J—C I] Cc C [kK] C C c R — w IL] C RJ Ww d R J [IM] C R e C R WwW R

Comments. Another copy (Bodley 22863 e.130, n.d.) has C in sheet a (outer forme), w in c (1),

W in e (0), but otherwise agrees with the Otago copy. {An uncatalogued copy, no date, in Monash University Library, kindly reported by Dr Brian McMullin, agrees in lettering, with two exceptions, with one or more of the copies listed. The exceptions are in sheet [C], lettered R and J, and in sheet d, lettered W and J. The evidence so far presented is still too ‘slight and ambiguous’ for firm conclusions to be drawn.} All copies appear to be from the same setting of type, though this has not been checked from

forme to forme. There may have been basically only the one impression, though the term becomes blurred in meaning with such use. Differing press-letters in twelve sheets may point to reimpression in these cases for reasons possibly unanswerable, or they may be termed, following

70 Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 W. B. Todd, ‘variants of uncertain order’ within the impression (Bibliography of Edmund Burke, 1964, p. 148). The ‘third’ edition seems to be in the main a reissue with cancel title of sheets of the first printing. Will other copies of the first edition turn up with the press letters as in sheets [H] [1] [N] [Q] [R] a and e? The slight and ambiguous evidence suggests that the term ‘third edition’ constitutes a puff for a poor seller; on the other hand it might indicate reimpression to cope with a continuing demand. Indecision is embarrassing. 10. 1731. BUDGELL (Eustace). A letter to His Excellency Mr. Ulrick D’Ypres, Chief Minister to the King of Sparta. Printed for S. West. Bodley (G.P. 796). No figures. II. 1732. ——— Liberty and property: a pamphlet highly necessary to be read by every Englishman. Printed for W. Mears. Huntington. 4? B-Y* Zr. Press-letters: B3-c, C3-J, D4-c, E3-J, F3J, G2-j, H4-c, 14-3, K3-7, L4"7, M3°-j, N3-j, 04-3, P4-j, Q4-j, R3-J, 53"-w, T4"-c, U3"-c, X3w, Y4-w.

12. —— Liberty and property. Fourth edition. Printed for W. Mears. Bodley (G.P. 360). 4‘ (—A1?) B-2A*. Press-letters: A3-1, B4-1, C4-1, D3-j, F3-1, G3"-l, H3-), Ig-l, Ka’-l, 3-3, M3°-j, N3-c, O4-j, P3-j, Q3-w, S1-j, T3’-j, U3-w, X2"-c, 2Al’-j; unsigned E R Y Z. 13. —— The second part of Liberty and property. Printed for W. Mears. Bodley (G.P. 360). A* B-G8 ¥?; y? are advertisements. Press-letters: C3’-1 D7-j, F6-1 (?); A B E G unsigned. 14. 1732. BUDGELL (Eustace). Memoirs of the life and character of the late Earl of Orrery, and of the family of the Boyles. Printed for W. Mears. BM (614 g.27 and 614 g.28); ‘second’ edition Bodley (Vet. A4 e.2273) and BM (G.4352 and 10856 de. 1)—BM copies kindly reported by John Ross. Frontispiece, A‘ (a)-(c)* B-2K* L?.

$ BM BM _Bodl. BM $ BM BM _Bodl. BM 8-27 8.28 2273-4352 8.27 §.28 2273-4352

B TwT T WwW ww C TRw R T wJ SRT R Ww D J RJ R JJ U TW E J R W TW F T w T w x — WwW G TRWw =r W Y W TJTC T H J — R Z J J I J J J C 2A OUT Ww rT W

K w T w w 2B Ow L T Tw2D 2C)=6T J Www MT WT TW

O I 2F oJ C C J P F J F J 2G J

N I C I C 2E WwW WwW WwW T

Q ew w Ww Ww 2Hs—ss —”~SsCséséiTT T W

21-J, 2K-W (none in BM 4352), 2L none, A-w (w in Bodley), (a)-w (w in Bodley), (b) none, (c)-C, (d)-T. {A copy of the first edition, 1732, in Monash University Library (923.242.075 BUD), kindly reported by Dr McMullin, agrees in lettering with one or more of the copies listed. }

Comments. The letters are placed chiefly on 1” and 4”, less often on 3 and 4, with fewer on 3’, very few on 2”, and only once on 2. Another copy of the ‘second’ edition (BM 10856 de. 1) agrees with BM G.4352 except in sheet M, which has W. All copies appear to be substantially if not entirely from the same setting, though this has not been checked for every forme. Alternation

Press’ Letters: Samuel Aris 1730-32 71 between two letters in twenty-three sheets suggests that for these sheets at least there were two impressions. Those sheets with no change in letter would represent either overprinting (of the

last sheets of text and the preliminaries) or reimpression at the same press. {Possibilities abound. Variations of this sort may be explained, as I have suggested, by the indiscriminate binding up of sheets from more than one impression.} Copies of the first and ‘second’ editions have evidently been made up indiscriminately from sheets in these varying states, so that priority of impression is impossible to tell from this evidence alone. Perhaps the publisher increased his original order of copies and puffed dropping sales with a ‘second’ edition. 15. —— KING (William). Remains of the late learned and ingenious Dr. William King, some time, advocate of Doctors Commons, Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Armagh, and Record-Keeper of Ireland. Printed for W. Mears. University of Otago. 4+ B-Y4; 2B-2Y%. Press-letters (in first series of signatures only): B3-p, C4-J, D3-p, E3-W, F2’-W, G3’-J, H3W, K4-p, L3-p, N3°-p, O4"-J, P3’-w, Q3-p, R3-P, T4’-p, U4"-w, X2"-w, none in I, M, S, Y. The second set of signatures, obviously from a different press, has no press-letters or figures. The first section has no ornaments and cannot certainly be attributed to Aris.

BLANK PAGE

The Printing of the Votes of the House of Commons 1730-1781 HE printing of the Votes of the House of Commons by William Bowyer junior and John Nichols from 1730-81 is recorded in the Bowyer ledgers in dense and often obscure detail.1 The accounts cover all Bowyer’s work on the Vofes, beginning on 13 January 1729/30 with the first number of the third session, and carry on past Bowyer’s death in 1777, when his former partner John Nichols took over sole control of the printing, to end at last in the summer of 1781. In Bowyer’s time the Votes were a commercial proposition returning a handsome profit to the Speaker, but in the very year of his death they first incurred a deficit, which increased over the next three years until the account was finally taken over by the Treasury, as implied by the last Vores entry in the ledger for 1780-1. Nichols and his descendants, however, continued to print the Votes until 1940 when at last they were given up to H.M.8.O. Illuminating, but necessarily brief, consideration of the voluminous ledger material

was recently offered by Sheila Lambert, as part of a discussion of ‘Printing for the House of Commons in the eighteenth century’.2, Miss Lambert was widely concerned with the economics of parliamentary printing and not particularly with the actual printing of the Votes or the workings of Bowyer’s printing-house. In this article I propose to concentrate on the processes of printing the Votes, on which the ledgers are especially full. I shall discuss in detail the form and content of the ledger entries, and questions of composition and presswork, Bowyer’s costs, charges, and profits, the paper used, and the quantities of Vo¢es printed session by session. Only

passing mention will be made of the more external matters of distribution and sale, partly because these have already been judiciously handled, but also because the ledger evidence in these respects is tantalizingly incomplete, and fails to reveal, as Miss Lambert discovered, “exactly at what prices copies were sold or how the Speaker's profit was made up’, or indeed what profit accrued to the booksellers officially appointed to print the Votes and named in the imprint. All four Bowyer ledgers contain references to the printing of the Votes. The two consecutive ledgers Grolier 19471 and 19474 present systematic and detailed accounts session by session, sometimes with a tailpiece of Reports and other parliamentary work. 1. The ledgers, Grolier 19471, 19472, 19474 {ledgers A, C, and B, respectively}, and Bodley MS. don. b.

4 {ledger P}, are held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the first three on loan from the Library of the Grolier Club, New York. Permission to use the Grolier ledgers is gratefully acknowledged. The Bibliographical Society proposes to publish facsimiles of these ledgers edited by the present writer. {Since published as The Bowyer Ledgers; see the Index of Names and Titles for the sessional accounts of the printing of the Votes 1730-81. See also the notes to the first of these accounts in Checklist 1486 (13 Jan 30 ff.).} 2. The Library, V, 23 (1968), 25-46.

Originally published in The Library, v, 25 (1970), 120-35. Copyright © 1970 The Bibliographical Society. Reprinted by permission. 73

74 The Printing of the Votes of Grolier 19471 devotes eighteen pages to eight sessions from January 1729/30 to May 1738, omitting the account for 1731; Grolier 19474 continues in an unbroken series from February 1739 to July 1781, the accounts taking up 113 pages. A third and very different ledger, Grolier 19472, gives details of composition and presswork from March 1730 to June 1739, thus providing a check on the more formal accounts, and filling in the gap for

1731. Finally, the Paper Stock Ledger offers a dozen or so pages of incomplete and untidy entries, which record the receipt and often the consumption of paper from 1730 to 1772, with large omissions for 1742-50, 1752, 1755, and 1765-7.

The sessional accounts in Grolier 19471 and 19474 follow a standard pattern, as shown in the Appendix. Ina separate line for each Vote are listed from left to right its date, serial number, size in sheets or half-sheets, the number of copies printed, usually divided into foolscap and pott, the amount of paper used in reams and quires of foolscap and pott, and finally the cost of printing the particular number, calculated at a fixed rate per half-sheet or sheet. At the end of the session the last two headings are added up; under the paper column a further allowance of paper is included for perfecting. In this way Bowyer was able to find out and prove his bill for printing, and the amount of paper used. In Grolier 19474 many readings are lost in the first and last columns and at the foot of the page because of charring and severe cropping, but these are seldom irrecoverable. The date, which in any case is often given only for the first Vote, may be inferred from the serial number, and the printing cost per Vote is a function of its size and the current price per sheet, which takes into account the number printed and remains constant over long periods of time. From 1755 when Bowyer evidently took over the management of the Vofes a further account is subjoined, setting out with frustrating brevity the total expenses and proceeds, the difference between the two representing the return to the Speaker. T’o the bill for printing is added the bill for paper, payments for fetching and carrying the copy, and a sum reckoned at 4 per cent of gross proceeds for distribution. Receipts from sales are listed with the names of those sending in returns, but the number of copies distributed is given on only three occasions and that incompletely. In addition to these formal if not always perspicuous accounts, there are minute entries dispersed throughout Grolier 19472 covering the years 1730-9 and relating solely to the internal workings of the printing-house. This ledger specifies work done on the Votes and prices charged by the compositors and pressmen, beginning from the fiftieth Vote dated 21 March 1729/30, half-way through Bowyer’s first session as printer, and ending with the last Vote of the session dated 14 June 1739, though the account of presswork ends three months earlier with Vote 58. Grolier 19472, which may be termed a compositors’ and pressmen’s check-book, serving as the master’s control on output and piece-rate earnings, is a running account written up every one to three weeks, evidently from the men’s ‘bills’ or vouchers. Entries were made by both Bowyer senior and junior, the latter taking over for good from November 1737, on his father’s death. Under composition is noted the compositor’s name, the numbers set (referred to by signatures during the first session), usually the price per sheet, and the total wages claimed for the period. Under press is noted the total number of copies printed at each press, rounded off to the next highest multiple of 250, the signature worked, specified as either

the House of Commons 1730-1781 75 a single forme or a half-sheet, and the price charged by that press. For the first two years the total number of copies printed of each Vote is split in two, obviously corresponding to foolscap and pott. Presumably the foolscap was first printed, for the use of the Members. There is no mention of the few copies on writing demy and royal referred to in the other ledgers. To reconcile presswork and composition one needs a detailed description of both serial numbers and signatures, since for the most part numbers are specified under composition and signatures under presswork; only in the last incomplete session are numbers referred to throughout. A sample collation of the Votes for the 1760-1 session is given in the Appendix. However, I have checked all ledger entries against the Bodley set of printed Votes for 1730-77, without finding remarkable discrepancies. The most striking point made by the entries in Grolier 19472 is their indication of flexibility of operation within the printing-house. In any one accounting period of one to three weeks there are usually two or three presses at work on the Votes; over a whole session there are from three to five. It looks almost as if whichever press 1s free takes the

next forme offering; certainly it is not a practice for the same press to perfect a sheet. Sometimes the work is quite evenly divided, at other times one press or another gets more than an even share. A pattern is hard to make out, especially since often the press-crew is not named, nor even the press column marked with the number of the press. However the complexity and flexibility of organization is clear, especially when it is understood that during this period Bowyer altogether hardly ever has more than five presses going at a time, though at one time or another seven or eight are listed. Moreover, frequent changes of partner and press are typical, even though some partnerships remain stable for weeks or months at a time. The turnover of pressmen is high too: from 1730 to 1739 more than half of them leave within three months The patterns of work in the composing room are understandably more regular, partly because Bowyer’s compositors were less mobile than the pressmen—for this period only about one-third of the compositors leave within three months—and because the nature of the job allows a greater degree of specialization. Still it should be stressed that again the prevailing tendency is the flexible interchange of labour. Though Bowyer commonly employed from eight to twelve compositors at one time, in the course of one session of four to six months from four to seven men had a turn on the Votes. In general only experienced permanent hands worked on the Votes; just once an apprentice is mentioned, merely as distributing type. Iwo men, Charles Micklewright and Thomas Hart, were leading Votes hands for the whole period, whilst three others worked on them for three years: Daniel Redmayne, Theophilus John Carnegy, and William McFaden. Another twenty were employed, sometimes for just a week or two. A basic work-pattern does emerge in which several Votes compositors take it in turns to work singly, or less often in pairs, for a week or two at a time. A closer look shows distinct varieties of this basic routine evolving over the years. In 1731, for instance, nine men all take a fairly even share of the work, usually doing four or five Votes at a stretch: four of these work alone, two both alone and in partnership with others, and three only in partnership. In 1733 and 1734, although four men had a hand in the Votes during each session, much of the work is done by two men alternating week

76 The Printing of the Votes of about. In 1735 companionships are to the fore: the seven men employed on the Votes work both alone and in partnership with one other.’ In 1737 a roster is worked by four very experienced hands, who follow in rotation for two to three weeks at a time. Surprisingly in 1738, Micklewright by himself does the lot, and the next year this principle is adapted with four men each working one long stint as sole Votes compositor. The Votes, like Bowyer’s bookwork, demonstrate the complexity and flexibility of workpatterns, and the impossibility of inferring these from the finished product. Pressfigures, for instance, do not consistently tally with the press-record, chiefly because of an evident failure to figure some formes. We have here further confirmation of the important findings in Dr. D. F. McKenzie’s The Cambridge University Press, 1696-1712 (1966).

Piece-rates paid to the workmen are fixed and unchanging. The basic rates for composing the folio Votes in single columns are 5s. for the first half-sheet, 85. a sheet for small pica, 65.8¢. a sheet for pica, and 5s.4d. for english, commonly used for the Address in reply. Each additional half-sheet small pica is 4s. From 1730 to 1735 pica and small pica were both normally used, but from 1736 small pica became the standard text type for the Votes. As the contents of the Votes filled out during the century, with enclosure petitions for instance, so the size in sheets of each Vote tended to grow—as can be seen

from Table 1. This contrasts markedly with the practice in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries of trying at all costs to cram the Vote into a half or single sheet by reducing the size of type. It is hard to compare these piece-rates with those for bookwork, if only because of the use of standing type: the same head-title, authority to print, and imprint were kept standing for weeks or months at a time, although different compositors were at work. Rushed night work too deserved a premium. I have reckoned that Bowyer’s Votes compositors were paid about 50 per cent more than usual, at approximately 6d. per 1,000 ens. Presswork, however, which was presumably done early in the morning so that the previous day’s Vote could be distributed to Members later in the day, carried no obvious advantage over bookwork. The regular rate was 5d. a token, i.e. 5d. per crew for 250 sheets printed on one side or for 250 perfected half-sheets requiring only one pull per side. In comparison, the price for folio Reports was 6d. a token, and for folio bookwork 7d. and upwards. Grolier 19472 calls attention to occasional reprinting, which jottings in the account ledgers confirm, sometimes with an indication of the reason: spoilage, cancellation, or a heavier than usual demand for copies. ‘To speed up the production of large numbers of the Address in reply, which is normally Vote number 3, the text is regularly set from

two to four times, though usually by only one compositor, and the edition quantity divided amongst two to four presses. Bowyer’s charges for printing remain constant for the whole period 1729-81. {Fora discussion of the Bowyers’ methods of charging for other kinds of printing, see below, ‘Printing charges: inference and evidence’ (1971).} The few variations are insignificant, 1 {Cf. Philip Gaskell, 4 new introduction to bibliography, 1972, p. 192: ‘English companionships ...

were first described in Stower’s manual of 1808, but had probably been developed in late-eighteenthcentury London for dealing with rush jobs in the larger printing offices.’}

the House of Commons 1730-1781 77 being attributable mainly to a delay in adopting a new and lower price per sheet as the average number printed fell below a certain level. The charge is reckoned at the rate of £1.25.6d. a half-sheet (or £2.55. a sheet) for 2,000 copies, which was the number normally printed when Bowyer took over the Votes. When exceptionally the number printed is increased, as for Vote number 14 (November 1755) referring to the recent Lisbon earthquake, or when the average number printed per session drops, then the price per sheet

is altered in proportion, calculated generally according to multiples of 250 copies. However, the price, after dropping steadily to 185.9d. for 1,500 is finally held at 175.6d. a half-sheet as for 1,333 copies, even when the number printed falls to 1,000 1n 1780. A decrease in the number printed during the session seldom causes an immediate reduction of price, except in 1754-5; more simply a basic rate was fixed for the whole session. This price structure is worked out according to the following simple formula, tak-

ing the half-sheet as the basic unit: 75.6d. for composition + 7s.6d. a ream (i.e. 1,000 half-sheets) for presswork. Thus 2,000 half-sheets cost 75.6d. + 2 x 75.6d. = £1.25.6d. For other quantities the charge for presswork is computed in multiples of 250, with rare exceptions, taking the higher multiple when the number printed falls between. This resembles the pressman’s method of charging at so much a token. Accordingly, 2,250 copies cost 3 x 75.6d. + 75.6d. / 4, i.e. £1.45.4'2d.; 1,872 copies, as in 1744-5, are charged as for 2,000; in the same years 1,715 copies are charged as for 1,750, but the theoretical rate of £1.05.7¥2d. is rounded off to 41.15. Exceptionally, 1,666 copies are reckoned as they stand at Ar (i.e. 75.6d. + 75.6d. + 2 x 75.6d. /3 ); similarly the rate of 17s.6d. for 1,250 copies

and under is based on the price for 1,333—the logic of these two examples is obvious. One instance may be allowed to prove the rule: 4,000 copies of the Speaker’s Speech in 1767-8 are computed first at £1.175.6d. a sheet (185.9d. a half-sheet) for 1,500 copies, the regular quantity of each Vote in this session, but then the extra 2,500 copies are quite fairly charged at a lower rate of only 6s. per ream. Some apparent anomalies can be explained as errors: in January 1729/30 8,000 copies of the half-sheet Address are entered at £3, instead of £6.7s.6d., but an identical entry in 1731-2 is noted and corrected. Bowyer’s rule-of-thumb method for charging the Votes, used for other kinds of work as well, seems to have been arrived at in the following way. Taking 55. as the price for composing a single half-sheet, he added his usual master’s 50 per cent to get his charge of 7s.6d. for composing. This charge was simply repeated for presswork, although in fact Bowyer paid the press-crew only 35.4d. a 1,000 half-sheets, and his usual margin would have brought the total to 5s. Clearly the charge by reams allows Bowyer about 100 per cent on productive wages, instead of the 50 per cent customary in bookwork using the rule of thirds. J. B. Nichols, head of the firm in 1822, declared before a Select Committee in this year: ‘it has always been customary to charge Parliamentary work double’.4 Government printing was expected to be lucrative, and to compensate for the extraordinary dispatch required. One supposes that normally during the period in question the House would rise by 6 p.m., composition would be finished by late at 3. See Samuel Richardson to Alex. Gordon, 9 Nov. 1738, quoted in I. G. Philip, Wiliam Blackstone and the reform of the Oxford University Press in the eighteenth century, Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1957, p. 129.

, 4. Report from the Select Committee on Printing and Stationery, H.C. (607), 1822, p. 205.

78 The Printing of the Votes of night, with some time taken up by correction, and copies wrought off early next morning for delivery later in the day. One doubts if such a schedule could have been kept up in the 1760s and 1770s, on presses normally rated at 250 impressions an hour, when the size of a particular Vote was often inflated by petitions {for} enclosure and turnpike {bills} to four or five or even more sheets. — The value Bowyer set on this fat and assured profit from printing the Vofes explains

his hastiness in remonstrating with Garrick for recommending to the Speaker a new Votes printer following a rumour that Bowyer might be retiring.> It also justifies the special conditions of partnership with both James Emonson 1754-7, and with John Nichols from 1766: in the accounts for 1766-7 Bowyer reserves tos. per sheet as his private share. A crude calculation of Bowyer’s annual expenses for 1738 jotted at the end

of Grolier 19472 suggests that Bowyer’s bill for the Votes might in this year have amounted to between one-quarter and one-fifth of his gross income. However this may be, Bowyer’s example shows how for a few eighteenth-century printers parliamentary work represented a considerable source of livelihood more or less free from the control of the booksellers. In this respect Bowyer no doubt occupies a moderate position below other parliamentary printers: the King’s Printer, the Basketts succeeded in 1770 by Strahan and Eyre, and the Printer to the House of Commons, Samuel Richardson followed in 1763 by John Hughs. Bowyer tried at various times to get other Commons work, but this was restricted to some reports and public bills in 1729-33 and after 1733 a mere dozen or so reports. {For other parliamentary printing by Bowyer, see under ‘House of Commons’ in The Bowyer Ledgers, Index of

Names and Titles.} Private and local authority bills were another regular source of

work, but these were paid for by the petitioners. |

The paper used for the Votes calls for mention. The paper stock ledger notes that Vote paper was supplied first by Samuel Hoole, who was evidently in partnership with Thomas Brewer from 1717. Hoole fades out during 1730, and from May 1730 to November 1754 only Brewer is listed, although many ledger entries fail to name the supplier. Intermittently from 1756 to 1762 Styles and Son, or Styles alone, is mentioned, but already from January 1761 Styles and Chapman is given. From October 1763 on Chapman seems to have acted on his own; no supplier is named after 1772, although Chapman sends in other paper until March 1774. Although the ledger does not make it clear, it appears that all these entries relate to the one firm, for according to J. B. Nichols in 1822, Vote paper had been purchased from the ‘same stationers (Messrs Chapman and Weguelin of Basinghall-street) for more than ninety years’ (Report, p. 206).

The occasional entry in the paper stock ledger indicates that paper was at first supplied on behalf of Williamson, the sole appointee at the time. In 1740-1 Thomas Cox paid the printer’s bill, on behalf of the three appointees. Finally from the 1754-5 session Bowyer himself undertook the management and paid the stationer, and in the next session he was named as one of the appointees. 5. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 1812-16, il. 314-22.

6. Emonson Papers, Bodley MS. Eng. misc. c. 141 (fol. 10°). In these unexecuted articles Bowyer excludes the profit from the Votes from the partnership proposal, and stipulates that he shall ‘usually carry the Proofs of the Votes to the Speaker and Clerk of the House of Commons, to be inspected by them’.

the House of Commons 1730-1781 79 From 1729 to 1761 two kinds of paper, foolscap and pott, are regularly specified. From November 1761 to 1780, and predictably until 1822 at least, only laid foolscap was regularly used: in 1822 J. B. Nichols explained to the Select Committee that a cheaper

paper could not be written on by Members. However, pott was always used to print large quantities of the Address in reply and the Speaker’s Speeches. Small quantities of writing demy and royal are often noted as well, and must regularly have been used for proofs, which in 1754 Bowyer reserved the right to carry to the Speaker, and for 6-8 copies of demy and 2-3 of royal, presumably for the Clerk of the House and the Speaker. Again J. B. Nichols explains, in 1822, that wide margins were essential for corrections and additions. The first four numbers printed by Bowyer in January 1729/30 appear to have been printed from sheets double the normal size—the Bodleian copies, in folio, have horizontal chainlines. Thereafter single reams are the rule. Double reams, which were developed for newspapers in the early eighteenth century in order to save the stamp duty imposed from 1712 on each sheet, may not, in any case, have been worth the extra

trouble. By 1828 Luke Hansard asserts righteously that he has begun to use double reams very extensively, which implies that this was an innovation.’ Prices paid for Vote paper remain constant throughout the ledger period, contrasting with a steep rise during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (see 1822 Report). Foolscap costs 7s.6d. a ream, and pott 6s. to 65.3d. from 1754, when prices are first noted, to 1780. From 1764 to 1775 demy, usually distinguished as writing demy, hovers around 23-55., except in 1770-2, when 20s. is charged. No commission on paper seems to have

been charged before 1814, nor does the price seem to be above trade prices as exemplified elsewhere in the ledgers. J. B. Nichols explains to the Select Committee in 1822 that ‘we charged no commission on the paper till the last eight years’ (Report, p. 206), because then the stationers first allowed a discount of 10 per cent. This contrasts with the more modern practice attributed to Strahan of charging ro per cent on all work for which he supplied the paper. Bowyer’s allowance for perfecting varies from one to two quires per ream, or one to two sheets per score. This is close to nineteenth-century practice, which had hardened to 21% quires or 516 sheets without outside quires, according to Savage’s Dictionary (1841) and other authorities. The term ‘perfecting’ is used confusingly in {Patricia} Hernlund’s account of Strahan’s charges for paper (Studies in Bibliography, 22 [1969], 179-95). Bowyer’s methods of allowance vary. Up to the session of 1757-8 paper is usually entered against each Vote as if perfected, so that one edition-sheet in 1,000 copies is reckoned to take up two reams. Then at the end of each session is added an allowance for perfecting at the rate of one or two quires per ream; both rates are common. But from the 1758-9 session the allowance for perfecting is included beside each Vote by reckoning four quires (occasionally two) to two reams for the first 1,000 copies in one sheet, but paper for copies above this figure is reckoned at the old rate of two quires per fifty copies (i.e. two reams per 1,000 copies), with no addition for perfecting. These simple expedients make the accounts look more complicated than they really are. 7. Report from the Select Committee on Printing done for the House, H.C. (520), 1828, iv, 30.

80 The Printing of the Votes of TABLE I

Session No. of No. of Max. Bill for Gross pro- Return to Votes sheets size printing ceeds (to Speaker nearest 4)

13.1.29/30-15.5.30 60% I4I 687 + 872364 472 21.1.30/1-7.5.318976 592% 2—

13.1.31/2-1.6.32 100 73 2 169 844 564 16.1.32/3-13.6.33 98 73, V2 2 171

17.1.33/4-16.4.34 44% 2 155 102 *15.1.35/6-20.5.36 23.1.34/5-15.5.3562 77 64 2 87 giz223 195 231 1.2.36/7-21.6.37 96 : 82 24.1.37/8-20.5.38 74 82 2% 186 1.2.38/9-14.6.39 go 88 % 2% 205 15.11.39-29.4.40 IOI 74 2%” 175 18.11.40-25.4.41 99 92% 3 219 * 4.12.41-15.7.42 120 125% 2 299 16.11.42-21.4.43 74 2¥2 I.12.43-12.5.44 10687101% 2V 174 229 27.11.44-2.5.45 102 115 %2 3 240 17.10.45-12.8.46 160 125 Y2+2 2” 282 18.12.46-17.6.47 128 115 2 22 241 *29.11.48-13.6.49 12.11.47-13.5.48106 108119% 105 43 239 215 16.11.49-12.4.50 96 96% 2¥2 196 17.1.50/1-25.6.51 IOI 134 4¥ 270 14.11.51-26.3.52 87 103 2 3% 209 N.S. 11.1.53-7.6.53 103 120 % 3 243

15.11.53-5.4-54 81 742 1% 3 150 1.6.54-"5.6.54 3 2% 4 246 602 226 14.11.54-25.4.55 116 122 5% 13.11.55-T15.7.56 127 146 4 276 782 303

2.12.50-4.7.57 126 150 523283 831 337 1.12.§7-20.6.58 122 140% 265 700 240 23.11.58-2.6.59 11g 133% 3% 253 624 210 13.11.59-22.5.60 III 128 % 3 237 555 172 18.11.60-19.{ 3}.61 81 78 V2 3 153 387 127

*25.11.62-19.4.63 6.11.61-2.6.62 117 144 +1 3%181 267477 663164 206+ 81 97 2 3% 15.11.63-19.4.64 245 762 673 238 244 10.1.65-25.5.65 86 89 135% 164%3% 4 298

17.12.65-T6.6.66 93 164% 302 828 793 258 270 I1.11.66-2.7.67 127 182 55328

6112 99 83 22 184.15483 161 *24.11.67-10.3.68 11.5.68-21.6.68 43 17 8.11.68-9.5.69 IOI 179 ¥2 7 383 1,028 376

£ 9.1.70-19.5.70 81 160 % 4 22 +284 93 +743 51 +237

13.11.70-8.5.71 89 173 21.1.72-9.6.72 82 182 ”2 % 8% 5% 330 333829 746250 176+

26.11.72-1.7.73 116 198 % 4 46354 733 125 13.1.74-22.6.74 99 206 366 683 72 *26.10.75-23.5-76 30.11.74-26.5.75 I0O97183 Y2 6% 324 602 64 192 7 338 590 32 31.10.76-6.6.77 94 210 %2 9 371 590 deb. 20

2.0.11.77-3.6.78 98 212 gV 387 502 ” ”TIQ 26.11.78-3.7.79 123 213 5% 388 521 98 25.11.79-8.7.80 107 216 — 379 425 ” 166 * 31.10.80-18.7.81 135 242 ¥2 — 426 421 ” 397 __ * Votes which do not coincide with the terminal dates of the session. + Given as 27.5.56 and 3.6.66 in Handbook of _ _ British chronology, ed. F. M Powicke, 2nd ed., 1961. + The accounts for this session are split between two Speakers.

the House of Commons 1730-1781 81 TABLE I (cont. )

TO Reprints Speaker's Foolscap/pott Address speech Approximate number of copies printed

2,500-2,000 No. 3: 8,000 No. 68 2,250-2,000 No. 2: 8,000 2,250-2,000 No. 3: 8,000 No. 78 2,250-2,000 Nos. 3, 74: 6,000, 4,000 No. 54 25250-2,000 No. 3: 6,000 25250 No. 3: 6,000 2,500-2,250 No. 3: 6,500 2,662-1,900 No. 3: 6,500 2,250-1,850 No. 3: 6,900

3,000-2,000 No. 3: 6,250 No. 18 25755-15843 Nos. 3, 74: 6,900 Nos. 10, 69

1,842 Nos. 3, 87: 6,900 2533371,859 No. 3: 6,909 Nos. 15-16, 18-20, 55 3,847 2,089-1,94I No. 3: 8,070

1,872-1,772 Nos. 3, 48, 78: 8,200, 5,980, 6,050 No. 47 reptd

1,872-,715 No. 3: 8,700 No. 52 1,771-1,671 Nos. 3, 36, 105: 7,615, 7,621, 6,612 2,315 1,673-1,473 No. 3: 7,673 Nos. 28, 50 1,698-1,488 No. 3: 7,944 1,706-1,396 No. 3: 6,956 1,700-1,397 No. 3: 6,960 1,456-1,414 No. 3: 5,960 1,460-1,414 No. 3: 5,960 1,460-1,410 No. 3: 5,960

1,325 No. 3: 5,662 1,260

1,368-1,344 No. 3: 6,484 1,344 (No. 14: 1,984) No. 3: 8,700

1,325 No. 3: 7,500

1,325-1,225 No. 3: 6,950 . 1,392-1,272 No. 3: 8,840 1,368-1,224 No. 3: 9,250 1,416-1,248 No. 5: 9,722

1,250-1,180 Nos. 3, 36: 10,000, 2,750 1,500 I,250-1,230 Nos. 3, 17: 10,250, 3,000 1,250 (No. ro: 1,500) No. 4: 9,500

1,350-1,250 No. 3: 9,500 1,350-1,250 Nos. 3, 8: 9,500, 6,500

1,350-1,250 3: 9,000 I,350-1,250 No.No. 3: 9,000 4,000 | 1,350-1,250 No. 4: 2,250 1,500-1,250 Nos. 3, 52: 9,000, 1,750 (52% shts. reptd.) I,500-1,400 No. 3: 8,000 I,500-1,300 No. 3: 8,000 I,500-1,250 No. 3: 8,000 1,400-1,175 No. 3: 8,000 I,200-I,I50 No. 3: 7,500

1,150 No. 3: 6: 6,000 6,000 1,150 No. I,I5O-I,050 No. I,I00-1,050 Nos. 3, 53: 6,000, 3,000 1,000 No. 3: 6,000 1,000 (two Addresses)

3: 6,000 2,500

82 The Printing of the Votes of The amount of paper accounted for provides a rough check on the number of copies printed, which is useful because the number printed is noted only at intervals during the session, evidently when there is a change in quantity. The exact number printed cannot be inferred from the paper account because for one thing spoilage is not known. This limitation applies in bookwork too, where the Bowyer ledgers often record the delivery of a few more or less than the stipulated edition quantity. The quantities of Votes printed over the years are recorded in full detail in Grolier 19471 and 19474. An attempt has been made to summarize this information in Table I, but without always clearly indicating the average number printed in each session. The number of foolscap copies printed from 1730 to May 1761 varies little between 1,032 and goo; there is not much change within a session. From this date all copies are in foolscap. Of the foolscap some 600 went to the Members—615 is mentioned in 1761—and the rest no doubt to the official customers. The pott copies, evidently for public sale, gradually decline in number from an average of 1,000 in 1730, apart from a brief rise in 1735 and 1736 to 1,250, to an average of 264 in 1761. The sharpest decline came in 1743-4

(943 down to 792), 1744-5 (to 715), and 1746-7 (to 538). Such a loss in public support resulted no doubt from an increase in the more or less surreptitious reporting of proceedings in newspapers and magazines—Dr. Johnson’s efforts for the Gentleman’s magazine are best known.® By 1777, when the number printed fell to 1,050, the account no longer balanced, and eventually in 1781 was taken over by the Treasury.? The sale of the Votes, as John Nichols remarked, had been destroyed by the daily publication of the debates in the newspapers (Anecdotes, ii. 414). The Speaker’s profit thus fell victim to the successful issue in the early 1770s of a long-drawn-out struggle to secure this notable freedom of the press. Parliamentary reporting had gone on throughout the eighteenth century and before in newspapers, newsletters, and periodicals, not to mention the general collections covering a whole session. But at best this was scarcely tolerated by the House of Commons. Their official view was expressed by their frequent action taken against offending reports, and may be summed up by the Resolution that it was ‘an Indignity to, and a Breach of the Privilege of, this House, for any Person to presume to give, in written or printed Newspapers, any Account or Minutes of the Debates or other Proceedings of this House or of any Committee thereof’ (26 February 1738/9). Similar resolutions of 26 February 1701/2, 23 January 1722/3, 13 April 1738, and so on, with their seventeenthcentury precedents, which the House steadfastly bore in mind, refer to other occasions on which the culprits were dealt with in varying degrees of severity, which involved at the least being reprimanded at the bar of the House on their knees before the Speaker. The final round was fought to a standstill from February to May 1771, the advantage going to the challenger. This episode inhibited further attempts to restrain the publi-

cation of parliamentary debates, although it was not until well on in the nineteenth century that these were officially allowed. The challenger was the Lord Mayor of London, Brass Crosby, seconded by Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, asserting civic rights 8. Cf. Nichols, Anecdotes, v. 9-18.

g. Lambert, p. 29 n. 1, referring to the Treasury Royal Warrant books.

the House of Commons 1730-1781 83 against parliamentary privilege. An initial reverse for the House came when Thompson and Wheble, printers of the Gazetteer and the Middlesex journal, against whom a complaint had been laid in the House on 8 February, were discharged by Wilkes and Oliver a month later. Complaints against six other newspapers at first went more smoothly: five penitent offenders were reprimanded at the bar of the House and discharged after paying a fee. But J. Millar, printer of the London evening post, appealed to the civic authorities, in the persons of Crosby, Wilkes, and Oliver, who discharged him from the custody of the Messenger of the House. The enraged House turned on the Lord Mayor, and despite much popular clamour committed him to the Tower on 27 April for breach of the privileges of the House. However, at the end of the session, ten days later, Crosby was perforce released amid civic rejoicing, and the case was not brought up again.?° While the ledgers have perhaps too much to say about the printing of the Votes, their account of distribution is seriously incomplete. The names of those who sent in money for Votes and the amounts are listed for all but five sessions from 1755. (The omissions are 1762-3, 1763-4, 1774-5, 1779-80, and 1780-1.) But for only one of these sessions, 1760-1, are there also listed the numbers of copies which produced these sums. In two other sessions, 1738-9 and 1753-4, incomplete accounts of the numbers distributed are given, but no return of proceeds. Unfortunately, in the 1760-1 account, there is no uniform correlation between numbers of copies and money received. Some returns work out close to the figure of 135.5%2d. a set wholesale, the only occasion on which this point is mentioned, but others are a little higher or much lower. These apparent anomalies no doubt reflect changes in the quantities sold during the session, just as we know

that there were fluctuations in the number printed. One wonders too if there is concealed a price differential between suppliers to the various government offices, and to the general public. We are twice told the wholesale and retail rates for individual Votes, in 1742-3 and 1753-4, and the retail prices are confirmed by the few copies found which bear a printed price. The rates are as follows.

Sheets Wholesale: Singly Retail

per 100 singly

Y16s. 125. Wad. 2d. I1% 2d. 3d. Al. 4S. 3d. 4d.

2 Zt. 16s. 4d. 6d. (5d. 1761)

2%” Ai. 16s. 4d. 6d.

33%——5d. — 7d. 8d.

We may wonder if all purchasers paid these prices, nor do these rates help us to find out 10. Cj, xxxiii (1770-1), 149-404 passim.

84 The Printing of the Votes of how many copies were sold to produce the sums listed under proceeds, because of possible variations in the number of copies taken during the session. Still, it is possible to say something useful about the number of copies distributed. The number of copies delivered free to Members is noted in 1738-9 as 579, plus 28 to the Speaker’s Servants and 7 to the Serjeant at Arms, making 614 in all. ‘This tallies with 613 and 615 House copies respectively entered in 1753-4 and 1760-1. Returns of sales are made by some ten or a dozen persons, their number thinning out to six or seven by 1780.

But three or four of these, recognized by Miss Lambert as suppliers to the Foreign Office, the Post Office, and the House of Lords, account for two-thirds of the proceeds, rising in the 1770s to over 80 per cent of the total. In the late 1750s large returns are made by the news-vendor Mrs. Dodds, followed by Langford, but soon what appear to be public outlets become insignificant. The distinction between those appointed by the Speaker to print the Votes, and

named in the imprint, and the actual printer has been well made by Miss Lambert. From 1729, in the third year of his long tenure of office, Speaker Onslow appoints a succession of booksellers to print the Votes, amongst whom Bowyer figures only briefly before December 1756, namely from January 1731 to May 1735. A list of the appointees from 1730 to 1777 is given in Table 2. The customary formulas are as follows: ‘Ordered, That the Votes of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker; and that he do appoint the Printing thereof; and that no Person, but such as he shall appoint, do presume to print the same’, and the Authority: “By Virtue of an Order of the House of

Commons I do appoint John Whiston, Benjamin White, Charles Bathurst, Lockyer Davis and Charles Reymers, and William Bowyer, to print these Votes; and that no other Person do presume to print the same. J. Cust, Speaker’ (as in the first session, thirteenth Parliament, 1768). It is not clear by what arrangement Bowyer retained the printing of the Votes under no fewer than three Speakers, though Nichols explains the patronage of Speaker Onslow, quoting a letter by Bowyer in 1761 to the effect that after about 1733 he could not ‘obtain the printing of a single sheet for this House, besides what was granted by the invariable friendship of him who so long presided in it’—a claim that was not strictly true.1! This distinction between the actual printer and the appointees goes back into the late seventeenth century. The first general order to print the Votes is said to have been issued in 1680, and as far as I can make out from copies seen (1689 onwards) the actual

printer is sometimes one of the appointees, sometimes not. Like the appointees, the printer usually but not invariably changes with a new Speaker. It is difficult to see from the ledgers what the appointees could have got out of their contract. In 1767-8, for instance, the list of people who sent in returns contains only one of the appointees, Bathurst, for the miserable sum of 41.45.11d., and this is typical. Iam inclined to agree with Miss Lambert’s conjecture that at least some of the copies printed on pott paper were sold to the booksellers’ own advantage.!2 One reason is that on

the three occasions when deliveries are noted their numbers add up to considerably 11. Anecdotes, 11. 353-4, referred to by Miss Lambert. I have conveniently assumed, following Nichols,

_ that the grant was originally made to the younger Bowyer, though his father was then head of the firm. 12. Page 28, n. 2.

the House of Commons 1730-1781 85 short of the total printed. Moreover, in 1760-1 the theoretically possible return from sales at wholesale prices of all Votes printed in excess of 620 or so delivered free comes to

something like £510 whereas the actual return entered was 4£387.55.3d. Granted that some copies may have remained unsold and ended up as waste paper, there is still a considerable gap that may have been filled with sales on behalf not of the Speaker but of the appointees. The returns made to the Speaker from sales of the Votes are given in Table 1. The outstanding problem is the number of copies sold to produce these returns.!2* Miss Lambert has taken the matter about as far as the present evidence permits. She draws attention to the evidence for the Speaker's profit quoted from the Report of the 1731/2 Committee on Fees by O. C. Williams.13 Here the Speaker’s ‘clear profit’ for {1729-30} 12a. {This paragraph has been revised, thanks to some gentle prompting by Miss Lambert. I had originally overestimated the costs by taking into account Bowyer’s other House of Commons work during the session, and argued that the Speaker’s profit could not have been clear.} 13. [he clerical organization of the House of Commons, 1661-1850, 1954, p. 309.

TABLE 2

Session ending in Appointees and imprints 1730-77

1730 R. Williamson 1731, 32, 33> 34, 35 R. Williamson, W. Bowyer 1736 R. Williamson 1737, 38, 39, 40 J. Pemberton, T. Cox, C. Bathurst 1741, 42, 43, 44, 45 (nos. 1-48) T. Cox, C. Bathurst, J. Pemberton 1745 (nos. 49 ff.), 46, 47, 48 (nos. T. Cox, C. Bathurst, H. Pemberton (H.P. omitted

1-79) 1745 No. 50)

1748 (nos. 80 ff.), 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, I. Cox, J. Whiston, C. Bathurst, T. Trye 54 (7th sess. nos. 1-41)

1754 (nos. 42 ff.) J. Whiston, C. Bathurst, T. Trye 1757, 58, 59 (nos. 1-24) J. Whiston, C. Bathurst, T. Trye, W. Bowyer 1759 (nos. 25 ff.), 60, 61 J. Whiston, C. Bathurst, L. Davis, W. Bowyer 1762, 63, 64, 65, 66 (nos. I-5) J. Whiston and B. White, C. Bathurst, L. Davis and C. Reymers, W. Bowyer 1766 (nos. 6 ff.), 67, 68, 69 (nos. J. Whiston, B. White, C. Bathurst, L. Davis and

1-86) C. Reymers, W. Bowyer

1769 (nos. 87 ff.), 70 (nos. 1-7) J. Whiston, B. White, C. Bathurst, L. Davis, W. Bowyer

1770 (nos. 8 ff.), 71 J. Whiston, B. White, C. Bathurst, L. Davis, W. Bowyer and J. Nichols

17725 73) 745 75 76, 77 J. Whiston, C. Bathurst, L. Davis, B. White, W. Bowyer and J. Nichols

1778 fF. [Not seen]

Speakers: Arthur Onslow 1730-61, John Cust 1762-70 (nos. 1-7), Fletcher Norton 1770 (nos. 8 ff.)-1780, Charles Cornwall 1781.

Imprints in each instance follow the Authority to print; the order of names has been kept.

86 The Printing of the Votes of is entered as £471.16s.4d., and this figure agrees with a brief note in Grolier 19474 {ledger B429} listing both ‘Produce’ and ‘Profit’ {as follows: ‘[17]30 Produce | 871.18.4 Profit | 471.16.4 half the Produce & 35.17.2’. The printer here records gross receipts (‘Produce’)

from sales of the Votes, and the profit (the amount confirmed by the Speaker’s own testimony) to be handed over to the Speaker. The rest of the ledger note explains, for reasons unfathomed, that this profit is more than half the receipts by 4£35.17s.2d. The difference between Produce and Profit amounting to £400.25.0d. 1s not accounted for. Most of this, I estimate, would have been taken up in the costs of printing and distribution, and in payments to the Clerk of the House and the Serjeant at Arms. There would have been something left for the booksellers. } The eighteenth-century Votes have for most scholarly purposes been superseded by the Journals, which are much more accessible and easier to use. Still, the Journals themselves were printed from an edited copy of the Votes, and although first ordered to be printed in 1742, did not catch up to the current session until 1761; even then the Journals remained weeks or months in arrears, until 1817, when the gap is said to have been no

more than a week.!4 But for most of the eighteenth century the Votes were the only reliable day-to-day record of what went on in the House, available both to Members and on sale to the public. However, their importance in this article has been rather what could be shown from the evidence of the Bowyer ledgers of the methods by which the Votes were produced, as a contribution to our knowledge of the eighteenth-century printing trade.

14. Report from the Select Committee on the Printed Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons, H.C. (156), 1817, lil, 3.

the House of Commons 1730-1781 87 APPENDIX Votes of the House of Commons, 1760-1 (8th session, 11th Parliament, 1 Geo. III). Nos. 1-81; pp. 1-314; 78% sheets. 2°. Collation (signatures and numbers): [A-C’] (nos. 1-4 combined) D? (Address) Er F-G? Hz J-K’ Lr M-N? Or P-S’ T-Ur X? [Y? Zr] (no. 23), [2A? 2B1] [2C? 2D1] [2E-2F?] [2G? 2H] [21]? 2Kz] 2L? 2-201 2P**? 2Q? 2Rr 2S-2U? [2X? 2Y1] [2Z? 3Ar] (no. 40) 3B? [3C? 3Dr] 3E-3F 3G1 3H? [39° 3Kx] [3L’* 2Mr] 3N-3P? [3Q? 3Rr] 381 3T-3U? 3X1 3Y-3Z? (no. 58), 4A” 4Br 4C-4D*™ 4E-4F? 4G-4H1 4P [4K-4L’] 4M-4N? 40-4Pr 4Q-4R? *4R-451 47? 4U-4X1 4Y° [4Z? 5Aq]

Notes: serial numbers may be inferred from signatures, remembering I/J and U/V/W count as one. Numbers containing more than one signature are shown by brackets. Copy seen (trimmed foolscap 1134x154 inches): Bodley 22722 d. 41.

Portions of relevant entries in Grolier 19474, fols. 158", 159° (unrevised numbering); editorial insertions in brackets: [Paper:]

[Date] [Numbers] [Sheets] [Quantities] Feap Pott [Price] Rms Qrs_ — Rms Qrs

— I, 2, 3,4 3 1032 +384 6:9 2:8 5 12 6 — 5 I 2554+7168 5:6 16:2 8 I 3 — 6 YW) 1032 +384 I:2 —:8 — 18 9

— 78 II 223 —:16 II 17 17 66 — 2:3 —:16 — 9 ve) 1008 +312 II —17 — 18 9g — IO I 2:2 113 I 17 6 No. 138 Recd. of Mr Castell Jr. 103 8 —

107 Baskett 72 2 4 150 +125 Jamineau 128 4 — 25 26 Axtell i 17— 7 25 or Barnes 16 14

6 Flaxney 3 Ir 9 12 Bathurst 4 6 Whis[ton | I Langford 32 13 —

Tonson 2 Odd Votes 7 7 8

456 [sic] 387 5 3 615 252 15 6 [Total cost of Votes]

II7I 127 9 9 Deduct due on acct. of 25 4 10

the two Reports as on — next Leaf 102 4 1 [Return to Speaker]

BLANK PAGE

& William Strahan at the Bowyer Press 1736-8 ITTLE is known of William Strahan’s first few years in London as a printer, al-

) though he later came to have, in Dr. Johnson’s words, ‘the greatest printinghouse in London’. It is therefore good to have evidence which fills a biographical gap of some two years, 1736-8, and links the preeminently successful Strahan

with William Bowyer the younger, ‘the most learned Printer of the Eighteenth Century’.”

Recent accounts of Strahan’s early years in London by R. D. Harlan, J. A. Cochrane, and others have added little to R. A. Austen Leigh’s statements in “William Strahan and his ledgers’. Austen Leigh supposes that Strahan, who had turned twentyone on 24 March 1736, and had presumably just completed his apprenticeship in Edinburgh, would ‘soon afterwards’ have taken the high road to London. This turns out to be so, but the earliest evidence Austen Leigh can find is the fact of Strahan’s marriage at the church of St. Mary le Bow on 20 July 1738; it is noted that subsequently on 3 October 1738 Strahan was admitted by redemption to the freedom of the Company of Stationers. August 1739 is the next date given by Austen Leigh as apparently the earliest in the Strahan ledgers, although an earlier ledger date of November 1738 has

since been cited by O M Brack, Jr.4 With these few facts to go by Austen Leigh tentatively assigned the years 1737-9 to a partnership with T. Hart, on the strength of an undated ‘Specimen of Printing-Letter by T. Hart and W. Strahan, in Bury Court, Love Lane, Wood St.’. It now appears from entries in the Bowyer ledger, Grolier 19472 {ledger C}, that William Strahan, or Strachan as he is mostly styled in the ledger, worked for the Bowyers as a compositor from early May 1736 to 25 February 1738—the older Bowyer died on 27 December 1737.5 The ledger, which lists work done and wages claimed by the Bowyers compositors and press-men every two or three weeks from March 1730 to June 1739, records Strahan’s output and earnings throughout his stay at the Bowyer Press. The occasional absence of Strahan’s name from the consecutive record presumably means that he was off work during all or part of the accounting period. He was off for two weeks in the first half of February 1737 following nine months’ steady work, again

for two months from the last week of June to the end of August 1737, and for two fortnightly periods during the second half of November 1737 and the second half of January 1738. 1. Letters, ed. R. W. Chapman, 1923, ii, 23. 2. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 1812-16, 1. 2. 3. The Library, 1, 3 (1923), 261-87.

4. ‘The ledgers of William Strahan’, Editing eighteenth-century texts, ed. D. I. B. Smith, 1968, p. 62. 5- Grolier 19472 on loan to the Bodleian Library from the Library of the Grolier Club, New York, is being edited by the present writer for publication by the Bibliographical Society.

Originally published in The Library, v, 25 (1970), 250-51. Copyright © 1970 The Bibliographical Society. Reprinted by permission.

89

go William Strahan at the Bowyer Press 1736-8 The partnership with T. Hart implied by the Specimen of Printing-Letter must therefore have been shortlived, belonging perhaps to the period after Strahan had left the Bowyer Press for good and before he began his first ledger, which offers no hint of a partnership, that is to the months between February and November 1738. No doubt it was the same Thomas Hart who likewise was employed by the Bowyers, but only up to July 1737, according to Grolier 19472, and not to 1739, as Austen Leigh understood.® The ledger shows that Hart worked for the Bowyers as a compositor from March 1730, when the ledger begins, up to July 1737. For the last four and a half years Hart was evidently the leading hand, for his name heads the list of compositors from 16 December 1732. The young Strahan’s earnings while working for Bowyer were not remarkable: he averaged fourteen shillings a week for the last stx months of 1736, compared to one pound for Hart. For part of this time Strahan worked in companionship with Joseph Collyer, but on his own in 1737 Strahan’s earnings were a little higher. The score or so works in which Strahan had a hand were all English or French. They included Jean Domat, The civil law in its natural order, trans. William Strahan, LL.D., and ed., 1737; Jonathan Swift, Political tracts, 1738; William Logan, A view of the present state of Scotland, 1738, Daniel Defoe, A tour thro’ the whole island of Great-Britain, and ed., 1738; and George Whitefield, The benefits of an early piety, preached 28 Septem-

ber 1737, 2nd ed., for James Hutton, 1738. Whitefield and his publisher Hutton were among Strahan’s first customers, as Austen Leigh notes: Strahan had won them from his former master.

6. H. R. Plomer (Dictionary of Printers 1726-75 under HART, T.) follows Austen Leigh.

& Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence HE facts of book production seldom turn out to be as simple as we suppose. We

| have recently been warned for instance not to infer a ‘strict relationship between a particular compositor and a particular press-crew’ in respect of a given work, since the practice of printing a number of works at the same time results in unpredictable complexities of work-flow.! The lesson drawn by Dr D. F. McKenzie for the Cambridge University Press in the early eighteenth century holds equally for the Bowyer Press in the 1730s, as the Bowyer ledgers reveal.2 The danger of supposing ‘the existence of more order and regularity’ in the printing process than really existed, to adapt Bacon’s phrase, is compounded by our habit of going on to make particular deductions from sweeping assumptions. Dr. McKenzie has reminded us of this doubtful logic in a recent searching discussion of bibliographical argument.? A further example of the complexity of trade practice in eighteenth-century London printing may be seen in the Bowyers’ methods of determining their charge to the customer. This should serve as a warning against recent tendencies to presuppose uniformity of trade practice in this field as well. In a study of William Strahan’s printing charges, for instance, Miss Hernlund doubtfully supposes that Strahan had a fixed scale of prices ‘available for daily use in written or printed form’, which set out the prices per sheet to customers for works in the several formats, sizes of type, and edition quantities.* This scale is inferred from ledger entries which in Strahan’s early years usually note type size, format, and number printed, but later only the number printed and the price per sheet. Gaps and anomalies in the reconstructed scale are put down to lack of the right kind of evidence.

Miss Hernlund does indeed present a range, if not a scale, of prices for different classes of book-work that offers a basis for comparison with charges by other printers, but her attempt to infer an actual scale used by Strahan is of doubtful validity, for several reasons. The first is given by T. C. Hansard who stresses the need to calculate afresh the charge for each work, not ‘two works in fifty ... [being] exactly fellows’ (7ypographia, 1825, pp. 791-92). A cut-and-dried scale of charges for book-work to customers would have been little use to Strahan. What Strahan no doubt did have was a scale or range of piece-rates for composition and press-work which he used to determine his final charge per sheet. Certainly for both Samuel Richardson and the Bowyers charges to customers were largely a function of productive wages. The point is 1. D. F. McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712 (1966), p. 124.

2. K. I. D. Maslen, review of McKenzie, 4UMLA, 27 (1967), 109 {reprinted above}. 3. ‘Printers of the mind: some notes on bibliographical theories and printing-house practices’, Studies in Bibliography, 22 (1969), 1-75.

4. Patricia Hernlund, ‘William Strahan’s ledgers: standard charges for printing, 1738-1785, Studies in Bibliography, 20 (1967), 103.

Originally published in Studies in Bibliography, 24 (1971), 91-98. Copyright © 1971 by the Bibliograph-

ical Society of the University of Virginia. Reprinted by permission.

gI

92 Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence made by the younger Bowyer in a letter to Jonathan Toup probably written in 1760: T have almost composed a Sheet ... I cannot fix the Price, till I have seen the Sheet in

Print, & agreed with the Workmen’.’ Richardson has explained his own practice, chiefly in the well-known letter to William Blackstone of 10 February 1756.° ‘The basic importance in the printing-trade of piece-rate scales for composition and press-work is well recognized, even though it is not clear how far back in time they go. In 1749, long before the first London scale of prices for composition of 1785, Richardson had particularised the customary rates (Philip, pp. 124-26). It was these if anything that the master had to keep by him. Once piece-rates for a particular job were decided, the price per sheet to the customers could be found by applying what Richardson calls the ‘common 3ds which a Printer reckons on his Charges’, i.e. by adding half as much again to the sum of productive wages, reckoning correction or reading as one sixth of composition, so that the master received for himself one-third of the total bill.” Unfortunately, the Strahan ledgers reveal neither the rates for piece-work, nor how Strahan used these to arrive at his charge per sheet. We might of course assume that Strahan, like Richardson and the Bowyers, used the ‘rule of thirds’, so that it should be possible to infer the prices paid for composition and press-work from the final charge

per sheet. Some support for the results would come from prices current at the Cambridge University Press early in the century, or at the Bowyer Press during the 1730s, as shown by Dr. McKenzie in his study of the Cambridge University Press (1966) and his ‘Printers of the mind’ (1969), Appendix II. Evidence that Bowyer commonly followed the rule of thirds to make up his price

per sheet in book-work comes from his dispute with his partner James Emonson in 1757.2 Once this is known it is often possible to infer acceptable rates for composition and press-work in examples where only the charge per sheet or even just the total cost of printing is known. For instance, the total cost of printing 1,000 copies of Voltaire’s History of Charles XII, 1755, in 12°, is noted at £21.0s.0d. for 15 sheets, which works out at

£1.85.0d. a sheet. Supposing press-work to have cost 15.24. a token (of 250 perfected sheets), the most common rate quoted by various authorities, then the total per sheet for the 1,000 copies works out exactly at 125. for composing, 2s. for reading, 4 x 15.2d. for press-work, and 9s.4d. for Bowyer’s share. Confirmation of this guess-work is provided by a manuscript note that composition was in fact 125.

However, these little calculations do not always work out neatly, and then one suspects that other hidden factors have influenced the result, such as say the need to quote a more than usually competitive price to the customer. Not once does the charge per sheet quoted by Dr. McKenzie for ten works in Appendix II (g) of ‘Printers of the mind’ break down theoretically according to the rule of thirds, although these are all

cases where the cost of composition and press-work is known. When for item 1 a theoretical 235.742d. by the rule of thirds is found charged at 245., then apparently Bow5. Bodley MS. Clarendon Press d. 47, fo. 12. 6.1. G. Philip, Wiliam Blackstone and the reform of the Oxford University Press in the eighteenth century (1957), PP. 39°42.

7. Philip, p. 128: Richardson to Alexander Gordon, 9 November 1738. 8. Partnership Papers with James Emonson 1754-7, Bodley MS. Eng. misc. c. 141, fo. 131.

Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence 93 yer has merely rounded off this calculation to the nearest shilling; but in items 2 and 7 the charge of 18s. ought by the rule of thirds to have been 16s.6d. and 19s5.3d. respectively.

Elsewhere Dr. McKenzie has called it ‘a simple matter’ by applying the rule of thirds to calculate rates for composition and press-work for the London Magazine. Noting that the price per sheet increases 65. per 500 copies from 1,500 to 8,000, and allowing 2s. of this for the master’s third, Dr. McKenzie manages to split up the price per sheet for 4,000 copies as follows: composition per sheet 16s., correction at one-sixth 25.8d., press-work at 85. per 1,000 41.125.0d., plus the master’s third 41.55.4d., totalling

£3.16s.0d. The computation works out very neatly, but both composition and presswork are suspiciously high. For press-work something less than 45.8d. {per 1,000} for long runs is suggested by Richardson writing in 1756, and this is the maximum at the Bowyer Press for book-work (Philip, p. 42). I think it more likely that Ackers took a fatter share than the rule of thirds would allow for printing the London Magazine, in which he was a proprietor, something closer to the one hundred per cent on productive wages charged by Bowyer for printing the Votes of the House of Commons."

To do this Ackers may have used a different method of computing the price per sheet. This is a method occasionally noted in the Bowyer ledgers for runs of 1,500 or more, according to which Ackers could have taken 4os. per sheet as his basic price for {the first} 1,000 copies and thereafter charged 65. a ream for press-work, at more than double the wages paid out to the press-men. The result may be the same, but the method of attaining it quite different, an alternative method to the rule of thirds. An example of a calculation by this method was found ‘confusing’ by J. D. Fleeman when announcing the discovery of a set of Bowyer ledgers in the library of the Grolier Club, New York."! The item relates to Richardson’s Pame/a in small pica 12° entered 2 March (?) 1741: ‘2 Sh. No. 3000, at 26s & 5s pler] “R 46s’. This should be read as 26s. a sheet for the first 1,000 copies and 5s. per ream {that is per 500 copies} thereafter, amounting to 46s. a sheet. Another example is printed without comment as item 8 in Appendix II (g) of Dr. McKenzie’s ‘Printers of the mind’. In the Bowyer ledgers Grolier Club 19471 {ledger A} and 19474 {ledger B}, which are consecutive customer account books covering some sixty years, I have found fifteen or so references to this method from 1717 to 1746. The only obvious common factor to the works involved is an edition quantity of 1,500 or more, the great majority of works printed by the Bowyers being of 1,000 copies or under. Otherwise the works are mostly in 8° and 12°, varying in length, though more often very short, printed for a variety of publishers, and only four times shared with other printers. There is reason to suspect the use of this formula on other occasions when only the price per sheet is given. For instance, of a set of seven duodecimo plays mostly by Nathaniel Lee, entered for W. Feales and Partners on 11 February 1734, the first separately printed play Sophonisba is noted at ’30s pler] Sht for ye first Thousd & §s pler] ‘R. for ye rest, viz. 47s: per Sheet’ (Grolier 19471, fo. 115"). For the subsequent plays in g. A ledger of Charles Ackers, Oxford Bibliographical Society (1968), p. 12. 10. K. I. D. Maslen, “The printing of the Votes of the House of Commons 1730-1781’, The Library, v, 25 (1970), 120-35 {reprinted above}. 1. Times Literary Supplement, 19.12.63, p. 1056.

94 Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence quantities ranging from 2,000-3,000 only the total price per sheet is given. The same practice is found for a group of ten plays for Jacob Tonson entered during 1734-5: 10,000 copies of the first play in the series, the London Prodigal in long primer 12°, are charged at ‘30s for ye 1000 & 5s p[er] ‘R’, but for the remaining plays only the total amount of

the bill is noted, sometimes with the price per sheet. For instance, 10,000 of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra are charged at £6.0s.0d. (Grolier 19471, fo. 89”).

How often was charge by the ream over 1,000 copies reckoned in the very many instances where only the price per sheet or total bill is noted, as in Strahan’s ledgers? No definite answer can be given, but the use of this formula for some thirty years indicates that it was no idiosyncratic experiment. The bibliographer must in future test for multiple hypotheses. Few entries relate to the period after the death of the elder Bowyer in 1737, but this may mean no more than that the son, for all his college education, was a very much less careful bookkeeper than his father. The practice of charging by the ream over 1,000 copies is closer to nineteenth century practice as described by T. C. Hansard in Typographia (1825), p. 793. Hansard explains that after about 1810 it became the practice to charge the whole impression by ream work, a ‘greater proportion’ being laid upon the sum paid to the workmen for expenses and profit, whereas formerly the exact sum paid

for working the first 1,000 had been lumped with the cost of composition and correction and thirds added on the whole—unfortunately Hansard does not make it clear what happened above 1,000. The increased charge for press-work amounting to more than double the cost of wages is justified by Hansard on account of the higher cost of type and the modern objection to worn type. The similar charge by Bowyer of 55. per ream, also more than double the payment to the press, could also be justified on the grounds that as the size of the run grew, so did overheads for ink, wear and tear on type and presses and the costs of warehousing. The charge by the ream after the first 1.000 copies gave a higher return to the printer than the rule of thirds because of the greater margin taken on press-work. This may be why the prices per sheet of items 4 and 8 listed by Dr. McKenzie in Appendix II (g), previously mentioned, do not yield to analysis by the rule of thirds. Yet the two methods are related, both depending on the same elements of productive wages. This relationship can be seen from the entry for the tragedy PAz/otas by Philip Frowde (Grolier 19471, fo. 72”):

1730[/1] Mr. Millar Dr Feb. 18 For printing Philotas in 2 Sh. & % No. 2500 & 6 fine Pica 8vo at 20s pier] Sht for ye first Thousand &

5s pler] “R_ for ye Remainder 4 7 6 Corrections in ye Two first half Sheets O 5 O 4 12 6

From Grolier 19472 under 20 February 1730/1 it appears that composition of four halfsheets cost 85. a sheet, and 2,500 copies at press cost 5s. a forme, i.e. tos. a sheet. By the rule of thirds 1,000 copies would cost 85. for composition, 15.4d. for correction, 4s. at

Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence 95 press, and 6s.8d for Bowyer, making 41.0s.0d. per sheet, the very price quoted by Bowyer. In this instance at least the price for the first 1,000 copies was evidently made up in the familiar way by the rule of thirds, and one suspects that this was the usual practice. The charge per ream above 1,000 copies at 5s. is 2% times the cost of press-work. Since

this figure is all but constant for the whole period in question, whereas press-work tends to vary slightly from one work to another, the rate for ream work should be recognized as a customary charge. It was no doubt originally reached by doubling the cost of press-work, commonly no higher than 1s.2d. a token for the first 500 copies, i.e. 25.4d. a ream, and then by rounding this {up} to the nearest shilling. Other examples work out rather less neatly. For instance, 4 defence of the measures of the present administration, for J. Peele, 1731, in 8°, listed by Dr McKenzie in the aforementioned Appendix II (g), is charged at 16s. for the first 1,000 and 5s. per ream, composition is 55.6d. a sheet, and press-work for 1,000 copies averaged 45.4d. By the rule of thirds the price for 1,000 copies should have been 16s.142d., not 16s. Bowyer has apparently abated his price per sheet, just as sometimes he knocks a few shillings off the final account once payment is virtually complete. {Abatements are given (or conceded) for a variety of reasons: for prompt payment, to correct a mistake in the original account, or

as a way of settling a disputed charge. The ledger account for Theophilus Lobb, 4 treatise on the smallpox, 2nd edition, 1741 (Checklist 2887) includes the printer’s wry comment ‘abated by constraint’ (B425). The account for the second edition of William Somervile’s Hobbinol, 1740, is eventually ‘abated for 2 shts standing 1 1s.’(Checklist 2807). Here is a reminder, not of a new method of charging, but of an important but easily overlooked variable in the customer accounts. The reduced cost of reimpression from the use of standing type is passed on to the customer, apparently as a matter of right. (See the annotations to “The printers of Robinson Crusoe’ (1952), reprinted above, pp. 20-21.)}

A charge per ream is commonly found in Bowyer’s jobbing work, applying especially to his regular printing of the duodecimo Sternhold and Hopkins Psa/ms, and various almanacs, for the Company of Stationers, and to such short pieces as Edward Synge’s Answer to all the excuses and pretences which men ordinarily make for their not coming to the Holy Communion, of which the Bowyers printed a dozen or so editions from 1717 to 1764. The distinct difference is that in jobbing work the charge per ream applies from the first. Again a common rate per ream is 55., as for single sheets of the almanacs Culpepper and Rose, but sheet B of the Lady’s Almanac with its geometrical cuts is 6s., and the title sheet of Poor Rodin in red and black gs. per ream, taking into account the double working. Synge’s Answer to all the excuses is charged on 28 June 1712 at 5s. per ream, but later editions at 6s. Volume III of the J/ad translated by Pope, 2,500 copies in 12° for Bernard Lintot, entered 1 September 1719, is quoted at ‘48s. p[er] Sh.

viz. 30s the first Thousand, & 6s. p[er] the rest’, volume I being entered six weeks later simply at 485. a sheet. Strahan followed a very similar method for large runs of jobbing work, if I interpret Miss Hernlund correctly (p. 95). As I have explained elsewhere, Bowyer uses a variety of the charge per ream for the Votes of the House of Commons, this time to allow himself a margin of about one hundred

96 Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence per cent on productive wages, in accordance with the custom that Parliamentary work should be charged double on account of the night work and the need to keep hands in readiness. This investigation has revealed an alternative method of charging to the rule of thirds, which has been too easily accepted as the all-sufficient principle of charging for eighteenth-century book-work. It has been shown that some charges do not work out exactly by either method, perhaps because on occasions the master suited his regular charges to particular needs, as all businessmen do. Sometimes a price was evidently agreed upon in advance. Bowyer printed 3,500 copies for Richard Sare of part of Abel Boyer’s Compleat French Master, 1714, at 255. per sheet ‘per agreemt’ (Grolier 19471, fo. 82). For many years thereafter, although the same price structure is kept, no agreement

is mentioned, nor was there need for a fresh one. Agreements are noted for a wide variety of works, some calling for large edition quantities, shared printing, or difficult setting—it is not easy to see exactly why.” The last word is best left to Richardson, who told Blackstone in 1756, referring evidently to the whole subject of prices, that he generally fixed his prices by ‘Practice, by

Example, by Custom, and by Inspection’ (Philip, p. 41). Richardson is drawing attention to the various ways of determining prices: by following an established system, by following a particular precedent, by following traditional trade practice, and by appraisement of the work in question. No doubt he would have allowed a further consideration: by agreement or consultation, with the workmen in the case of piece-rates for composition and press-work, and with the customer for rates per sheet.

12. Cf. Grolier 19471, fo. 79” (23 Dec. 1726): ‘tho’ L agreed with Mrs Collier for 47s. p[er] sheet I chargd at 40s. pier] sheet’ for J. Collier, Supplement to Moreri’s Dictionary, 2nd edn, 1727.

& Printing for the Author: From the Bowyer Printing Ledgers, 1710-1775 HE author in early eighteenth-century England is often seen as escaping from

) dependence on aristocratic and political patronage in order to seek his fortune

from the public at large. Whether he became freer or richer is arguable. Alexandre Beljame from across the Channel has hailed the creation of a republic of letters, with Alexander Pope as first citizen.1 Less philosophical eyes have wept the emergent author newly enslaved by booksellers more rich and powerful than ever before.2, How should one explain the frequent attempts by eighteenth-century authors, noticeably after 1715, to publish on their own account? As an exercise of new-found freedom, or a desperate attempt to beat the bookseller at his own game? Why else should an author have gone to the trouble of doing it himself? The author as primary producer constantly hopes to benefit from direct access to the market. The bookseller as middleman equally insists that a book cannot succeed unless he has a financial stake in it. “There are some authors who become their own publishers, but that mode will seldom or ever answer’, noted James Lackington in his Memoirs.3 ‘Vhe main obstacle is not the hostility of booksellers, as Lackington supposes, himself chiefly a retailer and wholesaler of books, nor that the author as a rule is ‘constitutionally unfit to conduct his own business’.* It lies in the complex nature of the trade itself. A book once written must be printed and distributed in order to reach its readers; capital is needed to pay for paper, printing, binding, and so on, for bills may have to be paid before enough copies have been sold to meet them, especially if the work is large or slow in selling, as are many scholarly publications. These operations require at least three distinct agents: first the capitalist or undertaker who finances the venture and makes vital decisions, such as the number of copies to be printed; next the productive craftsmen, especially the printer; and lastly the commercial tradesmen who

handle wholesale and retail distribution. In the eighteenth century the functions of undertaker, wholesale and retail distributor, were regularly combined in the person of the ‘topping’ bookseller, who thus acted as ‘one who undertakes the printing ... and distribution to the booksellers ... or to the public’ (New English Dictionary, Publisher 1. Men of letters and the English public in the eighteenth century, 1660-1744, 1881, English translation ed. B. Dobrée, 1948. 2. A. 8. Collins, Authorship in the days of Johnson, 1927. 3. Memoirs, 1791, quoted from 13th edn, p. 236. 4. Bernard Shaw to Daniel Macmillan, quoted Royal Gettman, 4 Victorian publisher, 1960, p. 77.

A slightly revised text of a short paper read before the English section of the AULLA XIV Congress, January 1972, Dunedin, New Zealand. I aimed to review a distinct portion of a large body of new material eventually to be published in full. Originally published in The Library, v, 27 (1972), 302-9. Copyright © 1972 The Bibliographical Society. Reprinted by permission.

97

98 Printing for the Author sb. 2b comm.).> The term publisher, however, was commonly reserved for the lesser breed of bookseller, whose chief business was the ‘issuing of books’ (NED 2b). It could also refer to the author or editor who ‘puts a book out into the world’ (NED 2a, quoting Samuel Johnson), and to the private gentleman who undertook simply to provide the capital. The author who wished for whatever reason to become his own publisher was likely to assume only the basic role of undertaker. From the beginning he would then deal directly with the printer, relying on the latter to lay in paper, which was a costly com-

modity that would otherwise have been sent in and paid for by the bookseller. The author would still require a distributor, perhaps one or more of the ‘topping’ booksellers whose prime function he had just usurped. Alternatively the author could assume the functions of both undertaker and distributor, usually by inviting the public to subscribe to a proposed publication by paying part of the purchase price in advance to the undertaker. Thus the author could gain both finance and customers. Often he shared the venture with the bookseller. Evidence that early- and mid-eighteenth-century authors published much on their own account, perhaps more often than has been supposed, comes from the printing ledgers once kept by the London printers, William Bowyer, father and son.° The ledgers span the years 1710 to 1773 or so, but are much fuller and better kept from 1716 to about 1740. Iwo volumes of customer accounts mostly made out to booksellers contain many made out to gentlemen, nearly all clearly identifiable as authors, editors, translators, or private financial backers. These private accounts and the greater number of the books and pamphlets concerned have been examined, as well as a few dozen books printed by the elder Bowyer before 1710. Imprints offer their own testimony, although, as will be seen later, this is seldom complete and often quite misleading. A select list of books printed by the Bowyers from 1699 to 1777 is given in John Nichols’s Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 9 vols., 1812-16. For most of the time Nichols consults

the ledgers which have only recently been rediscovered; before 1710 he falls back on newspaper advertisements and on imprints in the comparatively few books to which the elder Bowyer was accustomed to put his name; after 1766 Nichols evidently draws on ledgers now vanished which he must have kept as partner to the younger Bowyer. How much printing for the author is recorded in the Bowyer ledgers? From 1710 to 1773 at least 315 separately published works large and small are charged to 160 or so gentlemen. How does this compare with work done for the bookseller? A study was made of all printing done by the Bowyers during one year from January to December 1731, when printing for the author was relatively frequent. ‘This was carried out with the help of the compositors’ and press-men’s check-book, which records work done in each pay period of one to three weeks in terms of pages or sheets set by the compositor, and 5. New English Dictionary, tConger* sb., quoting the Dictionary of the canting crew, ¢. 1700. 6. The ledgers, Grolier 19471 {ledger A}, 19472 {C}, 19474 {B}, and Bodley MS. don. b. 4 {P}, are held

in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the first three on loan from the Library of the Grolier Club, New York. Permission to use them is gratefully acknowledged. The Bibliographical Society proposes to publish facsimiles of the ledgers edited by the present writer.

Printing for the Author 99 formes worked off at press. Of all items separately charged in the customer accounts, 33

were printed for gentlemen, compared to 70 done for the bookseller, a proportion of about 1:2. However, most of the jobs done for the author (nearly always the gentleman concerned) were very small: 23 proposals, receipts, and specimens relating to subscription editions, all in one sheet or less. The number of sheets of text composed on behalf of gentlemen was 268, compared to 818 for the bookseller, a proportion of 1:3. The odds

lengthen more steeply when sheets of paper worked off at press are counted. The number of reams of paper used during 1731 for gentlemen’s work was only 112, compared to 1,640 reams for the bookseller, a proportion of 1:14. The comparative value of gentlemen’s work to the printer would lie somewhere between the proportion for sheets com-

posed and that for edition sheets worked at press. This is because setting in type formed a much higher percentage of the total charge for printing than did press-work, at least for the average edition of 500-1,000 copies. For instance, a run-of-the-mill book of sermons in octavo set in English type often cost 6s. a sheet for composing, 15. for correcting, 25.44. for press-work for 500 copies, plus another 45.8d. for the master’s ‘third’, making 14s. a sheet charged to the customer. The cost of composition and correction did not alter whether 25 or 2,500 copies were called for, whereas the cost of press-work increased steadily at about 15.2d. for each 250 copies of an edition sheet. The printer must have found gentlemen’s work a not inconsiderable source of income, and one which gave him a greater sense of responsibility, though it often brought extra trouble in dealing with unbusinesslike or fastidious private customers. Nichols prints several resentful letters to authors from the younger Bowyer, some wisely unsent, complaining that they expect too much from the printer or do not appreciate his skill. Changes over the years in the amount of printing for the author seem to show that this practice became much more frequent from just before 1720 up to about 1755, reaching a peak in the 1730s. From the beginning of the century to about 1770 the pattern is one of rapid rise and slower decline. This is so regular and marked as to be scarcely explicable merely in terms of the unequal distribution of ledger evidence, or by fluctuations in the fortunes of the firm. Conservative totals of separately published works for each decade make the point: 1700-9, 0; 1710-19, 14 (including 5 in 1719); 1720-29, 61; 1730-39, 96; 1740-49, 693 1750-59, 47; 1760-69, 14; 1770-73, 14—a slight increase. A tentative explanation is given below.

Distribution was an obvious problem to an author who decided to print on his own account. At least three methods were open to him. If his work was short—a controversial pamphlet or a single sermon—he could best sell through a bookseller such as Rob-

erts or the Coopers, who specialized in pamphlets. The ledgers record many such works charged to the author, and occasionally give details of the cost of publishing, that

is issuing, sent in to the printer who, in these cases at least, kept book for the whole enterprise. An example is Edward Underhill’s Remarks upon a late pamphlet call'd a plea for human reason, ‘Printed for J. Roberts’, 1731. This was an octavo of 4% sheets, printed in 500 copies. Entered in the printer’s ledger is “A Copy of Mr Roberts the Publisher’s Bill’. Roberts had been sent the whole impression, but sold only 41 copies at 1. retail each. The wholesale price was 9d. each, or 185. for 25. Roberts’s mark-up was therefore

100 Printing for the Author 25 per cent of the published price, quite normal for the period, compared to 33% per cent usual today, at least in New Zealand. His publisher’s fee was 9s.—I cannot tell the basis of the charge—and he paid out 125.6d. for advertising on three occasions in three different newspapers, and gs. at the Stamp Office. (By the Stamp Act of 1712 (8 Anne, c. 19) pamphlets under six sheets had to pay duty of two shillings a sheet, amounting for 4% sheets to 9s.) Roberts was 6d. out of pocket on the transaction, and billed the printer for it, who had to collect this as well as £6.105.6d. for paper and print from the author in the country. Controversy was often an expensive luxury. It looks as if the author or printer had entered into a prior agreement with the distributor, who sold only over his own counter. Nothing in the ledgers supports the conjecture that for a ‘stated discount, the names of certain ... keepers of “pamphlet-shops” ... could be conventionally used’.’ For larger works an author could again simply run up an account with the printer, although for big undertakings he would be expected to make progress payments in respect of both paper and print. Distribution in most cases would be through the trade, as imprints regularly show. These commonly read “London, Printed, and sold by ... [such and such a bookseller]’ or less often ‘London, Printed for the author, and sold by ... [such and such a bookseller or booksellers]’. Each formula might or might not also include the printer's name. Booksellers may have been the more ready to oblige a new author who had shouldered all the financial risk, in the hope of future business. Later editions of works first printed for the author were often taken over by the bookseller, as imprints indicate.

On the other hand one rich and famous author who began by selling his work outright to the bookseller later found it convenient to deal directly with the printer. This was Alexander Pope, who in mid career dealt with the printer John Wright, but turned to Bowyer three years before his death. Perhaps the move had to do with the complicated later history of the Dunciad. The ledger account, under the heading “Alexander Pope Esq.’, begins with The new Dunctad as it was found 1n the year 1741, a quarto

dated 1742, of which 2,000 copies were printed (Griffith 549). The entry is dated 25 March 1742, no doubt the date by which printing was completed. Close enough in time to be charged in the same account is a note of 1,000 titles reprinted, evidently for The Dunciad: book the fourth, ‘second’ edition (Griffith 556). It looks as if the author was adopting a device common in the trade in announcing a new edition to suggest that the first was sold out; the new title also links this latest book with the first three parts. The next entry dated January 1743 is for the octavo Works, vol. iii, parts i and 11, 1743 (Griffith

579, 585-6), which contains all four books of the Dunciad. ‘The bibliographical history of these items is still not clear, although the ledger entries should go far to help. {See Checklist items 3080 (14 [Jan] 43, & see 22 Nov [49]) and 3081 (14 [Jan] 43), the latter with a note based on information kindly supplied by David L. Vander Meulen. Pope’s latest version of The Dunciad and Bowyer’s work as printer are admirably examined in Vander Meulen’s ‘The Dunciad in Four Books and the bibliography of Pope’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 83 (1989), 293-310.} The following entry dated 2 October 1743 relates to the final form of the Dunciad with Colley Cibber enthroned as 7. R. H. Griffith, Alexander Pope, a bibliography, 1922, 1927, vol. i, part ii, pp. xliv-xlv.

Printing for the Author IOI Dunce. This is the 1743 quarto Dunciad in four books. Printed according to the complete copy found in the year 1742 (Griffith 578). Bowyer printed 1,500 copies demy and 100 royal, and delivered one of each to Pope and 500 to Cooper on 14 October 1743. Since the date of publication given by Griffith, following Cibber, is 29 October, the interval of a fortnight may have been taken up by binding. There can be no doubt that Pope controlled each venture. His financial responsi-

bility is indicated by entry of the printer’s account under his name; he dealt directly with the printer, as his letters to Bowyer make clear. But what was his relationship with his distributors? Did they sell merely on commission? All three accounts are paid by Mrs. Cooper, presumably acting as Pope’s agent. The imprints, however, claim that the first work was ‘Printed for T. Cooper’, the second and third ‘For R. Dodsley and sold by T. Cooper’, and the last “For M. Cooper’. ‘There is no problem with the Coopers, who are recognized retailers with no likely financial share in many smaller works stated on the title-page to have been printed for them. Mary Cooper carried on the business after her husband’s death. Dodsley, however, was a ‘topping’ bookseller from whom one would have expected the more straightforward formula ‘London, Printed, and sold by R. Dodsley’, had he no financial share in the transaction. One can only speculate about the relationship between Pope and Dodsley. The important point is that imprints were not meant to reveal the background of a commercial transaction, and therefore may seriously mislead the modern scholar who reads them too literally. Perhaps no one would place much reliance on the imprint of Samuel Madden’s Memoirs of the twentieth-century, being original letters of state under George the Sixth, 1733, claiming that it was printed ‘For’ no fewer than twenty-one of the leading booksellers, although the account was made out to Madden, who recalled only a few days after publication goo of the 1,000 printed.® A fairer example is Ellis Farneworth’s translation of Fleury’s Short history of the Israelites, 1756, ‘Printed for J. Whiston and B. White, and R. Baldwin’. Ledger entries show that the real undertakers were the

translator and the printer in partnership. Comparison of entries in printer’s accounts with the evidence of imprints, which is all that is usually available, opens up exciting vistas. I hope to provide further evidence in a study of patterns of imprints in books printed by Bowyer for the author. {A broader and very helpful discussion of ‘the meaning of the imprint’ will be found in Chapter 1, ‘Pope’s early relations with the book trade’, of David Foxon’s Pope and the early eighteenth-century book trade, 1991, revised and edited by James McLaverty.} The earliest recognizable form of printing for the author at the Bowyer Press is by retail subscription.? {For further information about subscription editions printed by the Bowyers, including joint trade-author enterprises, see the Topical Index to The 8. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, 11. 31-32 note and 700, confirmed by the Bowyer paper-stock ledger. g. [he term retail subscription is used advisedly since late-seventeenth-century booksellers developed a practice of calling among themselves for subscribers to the unbound sheets of an already printed edition.

Their next step was to subscribe for shares in the copyright of a book prior to the decision to print or reprint. These two practices are termed wholesaling and copyright subscription by the editors, N. Hodgson and C. Blagden, of the Notebook of Thomas Bennet and Henry Clements, 1686-1719, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publication, 1956.

102 Printing for the Author Bowyer Ledgers under ‘Subscription editions’. The 87 Checklist items listed 1714-74 may be compared to the 1,133 ‘Books issued by subscription’ between 1711 and 1771 (presum-

ably throughout England), reckoned by P. J. Wallis, “Book subscription lists’, Te Library, V, 29 (1974), 255-86.} Retail-subscription editions printed for the author seem suddenly to spring up in the early 1720s, flourish for twenty years or so, and dwindle into comparative insignificance. The figures for each decade are as follows: 1700-9, 0; 1710-19, 2; 1720-9, 223 1730-9, 19; 1740-9, 103 1750-9, 7; 1760-9, 4; 1770-3, 2. [hese figures

do not take account of joint trade-author subscription editions charged to the bookseller. What are the reasons for this relatively sudden and brief vogue? Is it related to the ease with which the public could now be approached directly through the newspapers? Later in the century the bookseller may have become more willing to undertake what often had previously been less viable propositions. He was certainly more able to do so as a result of increases in England’s wealth and population. While costs remained fairly constant the sale of a few more copies could make the difference between profit and loss. Authors would then feel less need to publish for themselves. Moreover, customer resistance grew to a system which at best caused everyone more trouble, and seldom brought much profit. Henry Fielding for instance, as early as 1730, while retail-subscription editions were in the news, as it were, was laughing at authors who issued proposals merely to collect the half guinea advance.!° By the mid century retail-subscription editions were no longer fashionable. The first example at the Bowyer Press of a retail-subscription edition printed for the author is John Le Neve’s Monumenta anglicana, in five volumes octavo, published between 1717 and 1719. The ledger account is made out to Le Neve himself, and the imprint to the first volume reads ‘Printed by W. Bowyer, for the editor at the Crown and Fan in the Old Bailey; and sold only by him and Henry Clements ...’. The association with a co-operative bookseller is significant. The few earlier retail-subscription

editions printed by Bowyer had apparently all been joint trade-author enterprises, managed by the bookseller, and printed on his account. For instance Pope’s translation of the Iliad, six volumes, 1715-20, is charged in the ledger to the bookseller, and bears the imprint ‘Printed for Bernard Lintot’. Pope’s 660 copies in quarto for his subscribers were ordered and supplied by the bookseller, who ordered for himself another 2,000 plainer copies in folio, reducing the number to 1,250 after volume 1. The dominance of the bookseller in these early-eighteenth-century retail-subscription editions follows a pattern familiar from the late-seventeenth-century Term catalogues. Subscriptions for Jeremy Collier's Ecclesiastical history are advertised in the Term catalogue for 1707 as being accepted for the undertakers Samuel Keble and Benjamin Tooke, and for the ‘author only’ by the printer W. Bowyer." The fate of later retail-subscription editions printed solely for the author was often hardly encouraging. Only forty-seven subscribers were forthcoming for Moses Williams’s edition of Humphrey Llwyd, Britannicae descriptionis commentariolum, ‘lypis 10. The author's farce, quoted Beljame, Men of letters and the English public in the eighteenth century, ed. B. Dobrée, p. 353.

u. Ed. Edward Arber, iii, 550.

Printing for the Author 103 Gulielmi Bowyer, 1731, and only sixty-six copies were printed. A more typical example is John Lindsay’s folio translation of Francis Mason, A vindication of the Church of En-

gland, 1728. The job was charged to Lindsay, and the imprint reads ‘Printed for the translator: and are to be sold by Rich[ard] Wilkin, Geo[rge] Strahan, Rob[ert] Gosling, J. Hooke, J. Crokat, Fletcher Gyles, and R. Williamson’. Over 2,000 proposals were printed on eight occasions from 14 March 1724 to 27 January 1726. There were also

newspaper advertisements, inserted by the printer. The work comprised 207 sheets, and 500 copies were ready by 19 January 1728. Lindsay encouragingly wrote to Zachary Grey in Cambridge a few months later: “Your promoting its sale will be a great obligation to me; for you know the booksellers will not promote anything which is not their own.”!2 However, the printer’s bill had much later to be settled by ‘a composition at [so much] per Book; but short of the Bill’. The books Bowyer took in part payment were

reissued in 1734: the accounts record that 50 titles were printed on or about 27 July. Many years later in 1747 Lindsay admitted to Grey that he still had “a good many copies’

on his hands. The seven considerable booksellers named in the imprint presumably had done no more than accept copies on sale or return. In other cases where the sale was disappointing the printer or a bookseller took over the remaining sheets, and reissued them as a second edition. Another slow-selling retail-subscription edition, which seems to show that private patronage may have become diverted into this channel, was Baldassar Castiglione, The courtier, with parallel Italian and English texts, put out in 1727 by A. P. Castiglione ‘of the same family’. ‘This was charged to the translator, and the imprint reads ‘Printed by W. Bowyer, for the editor’. The subscribers whose names are listed in the preliminary pages are put down as ordering 732 copies out of the 1,000 printed. The odd thing is that according to the account of the delivery of copies no more than 148 were delivered over the next five years, while the bulk were remaindered on and after 6 June 1737, nearly all apparently to the bookseller Payne. It looks as if many subscribers remained content to make the editor a gift of their advance payments. One wonders how often this happened. Entry to a private gentleman may help in identifying the author of an anonymous work. The anonymous pamphlet The hardships of the English laws in relation to wives, W. Bowyer for J. Roberts, 1735, listed by Nichols under 1736, is entered to the Revd. Mr Seward. Three pamphlets on trade are charged to one Reynardson, presumably Samuel Reynardson, F.R.S., whose authorship thus becomes probable. ‘The first is entered on 7 July 1740 merely as Great Britain’s complaint, of 5¥2 sheets, in octavo, 500 copies, published by Roberts. I have not found a copy. {Since identified as Great-Britain’s complaints against Spain impartially examin’d—see Checklist 2857.} The second is entered on 15 February 1753 as Disclourse| on wool, 434 sheets, 500 copies, published by Owen. This may be identified as A short view of the woollen manufacture in England, listed in the London magazine for March 1753. ‘The third, entered 25 March 1753, and likewise unseen, is evidently Considerations upon the important question, whether it 1s absolutely necessary and expedient to open the port of Exeter, and all the other ports in England, Scot12. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, 1. 373-4 note.

104 Printing for the Author land, and Ireland, for exporting and importing Irish wool and yarn. By a lover of his country, listed in the Monthly review for March 1753. {The British Library copy has been examined—see Checklist 3798.}

What kind of work was most often printed for the author? The largest class is theological and ecclesiastical, whether historical, controversial, exegetical, or homiletic, ancient or modern. The next most weighty class is antiquarian, especially relating to the British past. An earlier example is Samuel Drake’s edition of Matthew Parker, De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae, 1729, which had been nine years in the press. (This

compares with Thomas Mangey’s edition of the Opera of Philo Judaeus, published 1742, for which proposals were first issued in 1727.) In 1736 Bowyer junior was appointed

printer to the Society of Antiquaries, and his successor Nichols greatly expanded this interest, printing for instance the type-facsimile of the Domesday book [1783] begun in the life-time of the younger Bowyer. Next in rank would be editions of the classics, Greek being particularly well represented, no doubt an effect of the younger Bowyer’s own learning. His own edition of Conjectures on the New testament, 1772, continued to be respected during the nineteenth century. Medical men, such as William Cheselden with his Anatomy and Osteographia, no doubt sure of their market, quite often printed on their own account. Scientific works become more frequent in the second half of the century. In 1761 the younger Bowyer was appointed printer to the Royal Society, though this style continued to be used by the publishers of the Transactions, the booksellers Davis and Reymer. Bowyer’s various appointments as printer to learned societ-

ies naturally attracted work from members. Poetry, on the other hand, is not well represented, apart from volumes of occasional verse printed for unblushing reverend authors. One prolific but deservedly little-known poet of the 1730s was Hildebrand Jacob, for whom Bowyer printed nearly a dozen pieces between 1734 and 1738. One, entitled the Prude’s purgatory in only 50 copies, may yet turn up in some private cabinet of curiosa.

Leaving many other questions unasked, one may conclude briefly that many deserving works of scholarship saw the light in the earlier part of the eighteenth century mainly because their authors were willing and able to pay for their production. The clergy were the main group in all branches of authorship represented in the Bowyer ledgers. One cannot tell how many other learned works the maligned bookseller published and lost by. Imaginative literature, however, is little in evidence. To this extent Jan Watt was close to the mark when he saw the ‘trade’ as the ‘only fruitful form of publication for the author’.

13. The rise of the novel, 1957, Peregrine Books, 1963, p. 55.

Masters and Men ASTERS and men sounds like a good title for a novel, perhaps one showing the

| \ / ) twisting currents of life behind the solid wooden doors of an old family business.t Lacking the novelist’s privilege, and gift, to create life, I shall instead draw on a remarkable eighteenth-century printing ledger. ‘This reveals for almost a decade the intimate detail of work done and wages earned by compositors, pressmen, and apprentices in a London printing-house. In what | call ledger C, the master printer kept check of production and earnings at piece-rates both at case and at press from March 1730 to August 1739. Ledger C was written up at irregular intervals, usually every one to three weeks, from the ‘bills’ or vouchers presented by compositors and pressmen. A few of these vouchers exist. ‘The ledger was kept in turn by the Bowyers, father and son. The latter took over finally just before his father’s death at the end of 1737. Under

successive dates the ledger lists the compositors’ names, the pages or sheets they set, usually the price per sheet, and the wages claimed. In the press columns are listed the number of copies printed, the sheets or formes worked, and the cost of the work done. Usually the number of the press is given at which each stint is worked, and rather less often the names of the workmen. During the 1730s, the period to which I shall generally keep, there were two masters. William senior, born 1663, bound his first apprentice on 7 August 1699. After a disastrous fire on 30 January 1713 he set up again with the generous help of the trade, in Temple Lane, Whitefriars. The son, also William, born 1699, spent some five years from 1716 at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and left without taking a degree. Much later in life he commented: ‘My father (good man!) sent me thither to qualify me, by a new kind of experiment, for a printer. But it served only in trade to expose me to more affronts, and to give me a keener sensibility of them.? In 1722 the son went into the business and devoted himself ‘almost exclusively’ to the correcting of proofs.? Thus for many years the firm had no need to pay either a corrector or an overseer. In marked contrast to the Cambridge University Press, whose records, supremely well edited by D. F. McKenzie, form almost the only comparable body of evidence of early eighteenth-century printing practice, the Bowyer Press had no committee of management. How many men were there? At case within 9% years there were 85 journeymen and 6 apprentices, and at press in just over 9 years 88 pressmen and 2 apprentices. There were 169 persons in all. T'wo apprentices, one on either side, served their time and became journeymen. T’en men worked both at case and at press, eight of them being 1. Master’ and men is the title of J. B. Booth’s memoir of John Corlett and those who worked for him and has publishing, if not printing, associations. Corlett was proprietor of The sporting times. It was published by T. Werner Laurie in 1928 (Editor). 2. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 352. 3. Nichols, i. 230.

Originally published in The Library, v, 30 (1975), 81-94. Copyright © 1975 The Bibliographical Soci-

ety. Reprinted by permission.

105

106 Masters and Men normally compositors. Compositors might occasionally take a turn in the press-room, but pressmen rarely left their more menial task. ‘The number employed of both is over eight times as many as at the Cambridge University Press over the same number of years from 1703 to 1712. The enormous difference in size must mean that lessons learned from Cambridge do not apply equally to London. While exploring a few matters raised by ledger C, particularly workmen’s earnings, I shall also look to modify or confirm some of McKenzie’s findings at Cambridge. The apprentices are closest of all workers to the master. Cambridge in the early eighteenth century would appear to be exceptional in having only two apprentices, both at press. The elder Bowyer from 1699 to 1737 bound 18, including 2 turned over. His son from 1738 to 1765 bound 15, including 2 turned over. ‘Thereafter, until the younger Bowyer’s death in 1777, 7 more were bound, counting 2 turned over, all by John Nichols as junior partner. The total for nearly 80 years is 40, an average of just over I every 2 years. The actual rate of binding was not far wide of this figure, although only 6 boys were taken on in the first 20 years. The numbers do not significantly increase under Nichols’s management, until much later, when as sole master from 1786 to 1801, he bound an average of 1 apprentice every 1% years. (At the beginning of the nineteenth century, under John Bowyer Nichols, the increase is dramatic: 10 in 5 years, an average of 2 every year.)

How do these numbers compare with other London establishments? According to readily available figures,* 5 well-known London printers, Ackers, the Basketts, the Bowyers, Samuel Richardson, and John Watts, during some 30 years from the 1720s to the 1750s each bound 15 to 20 apprentices. McKenzie cautiously offers the comparison as an indicator of the ‘importance’ of Ackers’s business, presumably on the assumption

that the number of apprentices is somehow related to output or to the number employed. This at first seemed unlikely to me, but comparison of bookwork charged by Ackers and Bowyer during 1736 shows a surprising similarity in output between these two firms. According to McKenzie, Ackers accounted in 1736 for some 950,000 sheets, while the more celebrated Bowyer reached no more than 870,000. In 1731, to take another year at random, Bowyer's total output of bookwork and jobbing amounted to 1,165,000 sheets. This is a figure often approached and occasionally exceeded by Ackers in the late 1730s and early 1740s, when his business was well established. Perhaps early in the century there was no great disparity in size between one successful London printer and another. What about a possible correlation between the number of Bowyer’s apprentices at case (for there were few apprentices at press) and the number of journeymen compositors? Again, the search for an answer is instructive. Ledger C presents a broad and marked contrast between a small and stable set of apprentices and a much larger and much more elusively shifting group of journeymen compositors. From 1730 to 1739 there were 6 apprentices at case; 1 left after 2 years, another after 5 years, and the remaining 4 stayed for the full 7 years. At any one time there were from 1 to 4 boys in service: 4. D. F. McKenzie, A ledger of Charles Ackers, 1968, p. 20.

Masters and Men 107 28 .3.1730-21.8.173I1- two 22.8.1731-3.7.1732——one

4.7.1732-24.3.1733—two 25.3-1733-6.5.1734— one

7-5.1734-4.8.1735 two 5.8.1735-3-10.1737— three 4.10.1737-10.2.1739— four

By contrast, a closer look at the more rapidly changing group of journeyman compositors shows a small core of workers who stay for a year and sometimes much longer, and a much larger and less identifiable body of workers who come and go, and occasionally reappear in a matter of months or even weeks. There is no sharp distinction between many permanent and casual workers, although the terms certainly apply to those at each end of the scale. Of 85 men working at case in 1730, only 2 stay for 7 or more years, 6 stay for 4 or more, and 11 for 2 or more. Comparison over a period of 6 months will make the pattern clearer. In July and August 1737 there are 3 apprentices at case to only 4 journeymen. This is notoriously the season for change of employment, and several experienced hands leave mid-year. By mid September 3 apprentices work with 7 compositors. In February 1738, with Parliament in full session, 3 apprentices work with 12 or 13 compositors. (They are not the same 3 boys; one has completed his full term to be replaced by another.) These examples show that it is impossible to make out a simple relation between numbers of apprentices and journeymen. The master is no doubt best suited by keeping a traditionally small and necessarily stable group of apprentices, whom after all he has to house and train. In the mid 1750s Bowyer’s apprentices, numbering between 2 and 5, share their garret with sheets of Swift’s Works in 18°.5 Even if the Bowyers are no longer obliged to obey the letter of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Star Chamber Decrees limiting the number of apprentices,® no economic force compels them to forsake the spirit of those laws. To cope with fluctu-

ations in the amount of work in hand, they keep a small core of apprentices and of permanent hands and draw at need on what appears to be an over-supply of trained journeymen. The system makes good economic sense, at least to the master. The modest and regular employment of apprentices at the Bowyer Press suggests no breakdown in the apprenticeship system, such as led to complaints by journeymen towards the end of the century.’ The problem then seems to have resulted from a considerable overall increase in the number of apprentices, followed by uncertain commercial conditions at the time of the loss of the American colonies and the subsequent wars with France. The most remarkable increase in the numbers of apprentices is put by Howe at around 1770 (Table 1). Since Howe records for the same years a corresponding increase in the number of master printers, though not of masters in allied trades, the implication is that the increase in apprentices comes not from any change in the habits of individual masters, but from the rapid increase in the total number of masters, each with his small quota of boys. Negus in 1724 reckons 74 master printers in 5. Emonson Papers, f. 202". 6. Ellic Howe, The London compositor, 1947, p. 112. 7. Howe, p. 114.

TABLE 1. Apprentices bound or turned over to

Date of Apprentice’s name Father's If de- Father’s trade binding or Christian turnover name ceased

7.8.1699 Thomas Jones John d. wee 6.5.1700 James Bettenham John vee wee 9.6.1707 Charles Caldecott/Chaldecotte vee ve ves 3-10.1709 James Watson bes bee 6.12.1714 Robert Jollyman William weewes wee 7.IL.1715 Richard Spackman vee wee wee

6.7.1719 Thomas Tourney Thomas d. Lorimer 4.4.1720 William Diggle John Goldsmith 3-4.1721 Robert Collyer oe Le Lee 4.9.1721 Thomas Henderson I1.4.1727 Joseph NuttRichard John -d.Barber-surgeon Printer

§-12.1727 John Mazemore Jeffery wee Baker 5.8.1729 Philip James Thomas bee Letter founder 4.7.1732 James Emonson Samuel - Feltmaker

7.5.1734 Grifhth Jones Griffith d. Salesman 7.5.1734 Jethro Mazemore Jeffery d. Baker 5.8.1735 Christopher Pidgeon Christopher d. Pin maker

4.10.1737 Paul Reymers Paul wee Dancing master 5-5-1741 William Dickinson John d. Shoemaker 3-11-1741 Morgan Knill/Kneill Walter d. Blacksmith 1.11.1743 James Nathaniel Mist Nathaniel d. Printer

3-7-1744 John Crabb Benjamin weewee Clothworker 5-8.1746 Thomas Bowyer William Printer 51.1748 Thomas Cook John ve Farmer 5-3-1751 Benjamin Moore Charles we Cooper 7.4.1752 Timothy Hodgson William ee _ 2.6.1752 Edward William Watson HoggardEdward William-d. Carpenter 7.71752 Coalheaver 5-4-1757 Thomas Raikes Robert ve Printer

2.5.1758 William Tooke bee we we

6.2.1759 John Nichol(1)s Edward ve Baker 5/6.10.1762 William Hyland William wee wee 1.5.1764 Robert Locheed William we wee

1.10.1765John Joseph Dell Thomas wePeruke Labourer 7.10.1766 Mapples Thomas d. maker 4.8.1767 John Davenport wee Le wes 5.12.1769 Lancelot Powell Harvey Apothecary 6.2.1770 John Jones Thomas d. aShoemaker 3-12.1771 Nicholas Read Nichols Edward wee Baker

§-10.1773 Thomas Williamson John d. Carpenter

8.4.1777 John Denew we wee wes 1.9.1679William William Bowyer bes Grocer Cuthbert veeJohn bee wee

William Bowyer William we Printer

William Bowyer senior and junior and John Nichols 1699-1777

Place of origin Date of Consideration freedom

Galles, Derby 3-3-1706 ve bee

Ashford, Kent 7.5.1707 ves Clothed 7.8.1721

vee 5-7-1714 - wee

Lee 7.7.1730 wee wee bes bee bee Turned over to W. B.; bound 5.4.1714 to Samuel Reimer

London - Discharged May 1720 Londona6.6.1727 wee2Lee

vee 6.10.1741 vee Turned over to W. B.;Phil. bound 6.7.1719 to Gwillim

London wee wee wee

The Savoy, London 5-7-1737 £20 wee

Sutton, Berks. §-12.1732 ves Turned over to W. B.; bound 1.6.1725 to Troylus Excell. Not found in ledger after 21.8.31

Great St. Bartholomew vee £20 wee Close, London

St. Olave, Southwark, 4.12.1739 vee vee Surrey

St. Giles in the Fields, 4.8.1741 £I0.105. vee Middx.

Sutton, Berks. bee bee vee

London Bridge 6.11.1750 a vee St. John, Clerkenwell, ve £30 Discharged 1.6.1742; £10 being

Middx. returned to his uncle Charles

Wyche St., Middx. vee - Clifford, Hereford bes vee _

Davis

Great Carter Lane, we £30 we London

Whitefriars wee wee wee Kinnersley, Hereford 4.2.1755 bee bes Lambeth, Surrey 3-9-1751 bes nee

Southwark wee bee vee Standon, Hertford 4.12.1759 £5 pd. by Treasurer ve of Christ’s

Queen St., Southwark 3-7-1759 ve wes

Hospital

Gloucester vee £150 Turned over 3.5.1757 to Benjamin White bookseller

bes 7.5,.1765 ves Turned over 4.11.1760; clothed Islington 4.3-1766 £20 Clothed 4.3.1766, etc. St. Martin in the Fields 711.1769 wee a 7-5-1765

_ 3-10.1769 _ Turned over to W. B. 1.5.1764

Aldenham, Herts. _ vee

Chelsea, Middx. bes £20 vee 6.8.1771 ve1.9.1778 Turned over to Joseph J. N.; bound 3.3.1761 Covent Garden £10 to Kippax Lincoln’s Inn Fields ve £1o pd. in charity by Welsh school (All bound by John Nichols)

Twickenham, Middx. 6.2.1787 £20 pd. by Christ’s Hospital -~ 2.11.1779 _ Turned over to J. N.; bound §.11.1771 to Sam. Burchall; clothed 3.10.86

ves 4.10.1686 _ To Miles Flesher vee 6.3.1721 -~ Servant to William Bowyer; bound ve 4.7.1738 (by - a 7.5.1711 to Geo. Sawbridge

patrimony)

IIO Masters and Men London; Pendred in 1785, 123. Bindings by the Bowyers and by Nichols up to 1777 may be taken as representative of the trade as a whole. {The list of Bowyer and Nichols apprentices in Table 1 has been checked against D. F. McKenzie, Stationers’ Company apprentices 1701-1800, 1978, and back in June

1975, with Professor McKenzie himself. The following corrections and additions should be noted. Thomas Jones was freed 3 March 1707 (not 1706); James Bettenham was freed 9 June 1707 (not 7 May); Robert (alias Richard) Collyer was turned over to William Bowyer on 3 April 1721; for Thomas Cook read Thomas Cooke; Timothy

Hodgson was turned over to Harry Wright 3 June 1755, and freed by him; Robert Locheed was bound by William Hoggard 7 Sept. 1762, and freed by William Bowyer 3 Oct. 1769. Omitted from Table 1: Samuel Selfe, bound to William Bowyer 3 Jul. 1744, turned over to Applebee 6 Sept. 1748, and freed by him 7 Nov 1752.} {Nine of the apprentices in Table 1 are mentioned in the Bowyer ledgers, and listed in the Topical Index to The Bowyer Ledgers under ‘Apprentices’. The tenth name given

in the Topical Index, that of Blake, is not known as a Bowyer apprentice. The only ledger reference to him, at A125, reads as follows: ‘Recd at the appre[n]t[ic]ing of Blake [4]z.11[s].o[¢]’. This amount is credited to Jonah Bowyer’s long account, apparently in the first half of 1722. According to McKenzie (op. cit.) no apprentice with this name

was bound to Jonah Bowyer (the bookseller, and no relation of the printers). The nearest candidate is Thomas Blake, freed by redemption on 2 Dec. 1740 (McKenzie, op. cit., no. 890; entry within square brackets identifies Blake as a master).} I must pass by the question of the social origins of the Bowyer apprentices, and the fact that only 12 of 40 paid any premium. Instead I want briefly to inquire how much work they did compared to the compositors, or to put it in another way, how much the Bowyers stood to profit from their labour, and finally, what was the nature of their training. Work done by the apprentices is entered regularly in ledger C, but less often and in less detail than for the journeymen compositors. Sometimes their work is omitted from one accounting period and lumped into the next. This unfortunately cannot be seen from the brief unannotated quotations from ledger C given by McKenzie in Appendix II of his article “Printers of the mind’. The value of the apprentices’ work is seldom reckoned in ledger C. When it is, mainly from 1737, the amounts are never totalled with wages paid to the journeymen. The reason is clear. The apprentices received no wages; the profit from their labour belonged to their master. ‘This is why the younger Bowyer sometimes takes the trouble to reckon the value of their work, especially for the older and more productive boys. ‘The point is explained in the course of draft articles of agreement drawn up in October 1754, when the younger Bowyer was planning partnership with James Emonson. “That J. Emmonsor’ if he should live on the premises ‘shall board and maintain the Five Prentices of W. Bowyer in the same manner as he maintains his own; for which he shall be allowed out of their Earnings 55. p. week each, the rest of their Earnings to be pd. to W. Bowyer’.? Similarly at the Cambridge University 8. Studies in Bibliography, 22 (1969), 64-70.

g. Emonson Papers, f. 27.

Masters and Men III Press in 1712 the master Crownfield claims payment for ‘work done by my Apprentices’.1° The difference between the cost of keeping the indoor apprentices, estimated as 5s. per week, and the value of their labour reckoned at piece-rates represents their worth to the master. The Bowyer ledgers do not show that any part of their earnings were set aside to be given them later, as happened in the sixteenth-century cloth trade. They were, however, given some pocket money. James Emonson, while managing the business in 1756, paid out to 4 boys for ‘Holydays’ on 8 occasions within 6 months the sum of £3.17s.0d., that is about 6d. a week." If an apprentice cost something like 55.6¢. a week, how much did he bring in? At best he could work as well as a man. James Emonson, early in 1738, during the sixth year of apprenticeship, carries out work costed at 165.5d. a week, which is more than most of the journeymen. When he comes out of his time in the late summer of 1739 his average weekly wage for four weeks is only slightly higher at 16s.74%2d. One or two of the other apprentices often do work reckoned at 14-165. a week. ‘T'wenty years later, during some 22 years, Emonson’s two apprentices, allowed to him as junior partner, and recognized by Bowyer as ‘good boys’, earn for him an average of 145. a week. More conservatively, Bowyer estimates in 1739 that work done by his four apprentices, all at different stages of their service, is worth ‘los. p.w. one w[ith] ye other’.12_ Nearly half the value of their

labour is thus a direct saving to the master, or, perhaps a return for time and care in supervision. A similar saving accrues from the work of an apprentice at press. For much of 1731-2 the apprentice working at press number 1 ‘earns’ exactly the same as the leading hand. When Bowyer comes to make up his charge to the customer by adding 50 per cent to productive wages his gross return on the work of his apprentices is almost twice what it is from the journeymen. What kind of work did apprentices undertake and what was the nature of their training? The record in ledger C of work done by 6 apprentice-compositors offers scope for useful generalization. Only 1 of the 4 apprentices whose early stints are recorded in ledger C begins by setting verse, which would offer fewer problems of justification. This is Paul Reymers, nephew to the bookseller Charles Davis, bound 4 October 1737. On 10 December 1737, with the aid of Joseph Haggard, Paul sets sheet C of the third edition of the Vocal miscellany (1738) in 12°; the second edition had been printed by Bowyer in 1734. After this Paul carries on the rest of the work almost unaided, except to call on an older apprentice to help him by correcting a proof and revise. Probably other apprentices did more than is shown, because the ledger account 1s not quite complete. Usually, however, new apprentices begin by setting straight reprints of prose, with the help of an older boy or ajourneyman. For instance Christopher Pidgeon, called Kit, who was bound 5 August 1735, has by 13 September 1735 set part of a reprint of a religious tract, in company with Griffith Jones, a slightly older boy. The two boys continue to work together on another prose reprint, and on emptying cases for new small pica type. Early in Decem10. D. F. McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712, 1966, 1, 71. 11. Emonson Papers, ff. 192, 194”, 195. 12. Ledger C, p. {C1602}.

112 Masters and Men ber, Kit tries his hand at correcting and overrunning sheets of Edward Wilmot’s Latin Oratio anniversaria, which had been set by the older boy. After several months the new apprentice is tackling a considerable variety of work. The main exceptions are Parliamentary work, with its call for speed, accuracy, and stamina; legal cases, and texts in Greek and Hebrew. Very soon he is working alone on longer texts, as well as collaborating either with other apprentices, or less often with one or another journeyman. The apprentices tend to work by themselves. They work regularly on reprints for the Stationers’ Company, notably almanacs. Some of these, like Poor Rodin, call for the tricky process of ‘drawing the title’ in order to print in red and black. Jobbing of all kinds tends to be the peculiar preserve of the apprentices: bills, receipts, hymn sheets, titlepages, cancels, errata leaves, imperfections. All these would offer excellent practice to the beginner, are conveniently done under supervision, and would leave the men free to get on with longer works. The apprentices do more than their share of correcting typematter and reading proofs. On 14 December 1734 Griffith Jones, while still in his first year, is recorded as having read in the previous fortnight 3 sheets of Francis Hare’s Hebrew Psalter (1736), 2 sheets of Homer’s I/ias graece et latine, edited by Samuel Clarke (1735), 1 sheet of Littleton’s Latin dictionary, and 2 sheets of Samuel Wesley’s Dissertationes in librum Jobi (1736). Since Jones is the only boy to do such things, he presumably had a better than usual classical education, but I think it would not be unusual for a boy to have some Latin. Other tasks allotted to the apprentices may be described as printing-house chores. Early in 1735 James Emonson spent half a day cutting leads, and in November he cleared long primer out of the cases to send to George Faulkner in Dublin. Another chore which no journeyman would want was to complete work left unfinished by departed compositors. ‘Thus on 24 December 1736, Kit is credited with “Correcting proof and revise for Mr [Abel] Brook{s}’. Distributing type matter left behind by other compositors is a task given to apprentices now and then. In brief, apprenticecompositors are expected within a matter of months to develop a wide competence and to work responsibly with others or on their own. We must move on to the larger subject of Bowyer’s compositors and pressmen, whose doings are the main concern of ledger C. I shall confine my attention largely to the question of earnings, partly because I have not dealt with it before, and partly because the matter is integral to an understanding of the rhythms of work in the printinghouse, since earnings at piece-rates are directly proportional to output. I have tabulated compositors’ earnings at piece-rates for the three years 1731-3—and details for 1731 are given in Table 2. ‘In sudden view’, as when Milton’s Satan stood at the open gates of Hell, appears a chaos where ‘Chance governs all’. ‘To start with something simple, the column on the extreme left shows 25 pay-days in 1731, and in the 2 following years there are 29 and 35 respectively. It will be noted that the interval between pay-days fluctuates without apparent reason between 1 and 3 weeks; in January 1732 there is even one interval of 5 weeks. These changes of interval of course make it harder to gauge the rate of earning and production. The next column shows that the number of men at work in any one pay period of 1731 ranges from 7 to 12; in 1732 and 1733 the ranges are 6-15 and 6-

12 respectively. The top line shows that 17 men are employed at case during 1731; this total rises the following year to 30, falling in 1733 to 19. ‘The body of the table shows that

Masters and Men 113 earnings vary bewilderingly both for the individual and between one man and another; this is also true of 1732 and 1733. In the right-hand column total wages vary considerably from one quarter to the next, suggesting seasonal changes, but their pattern differs in 1732, as can be seen from the figures in brackets, and this also occurs in 1733. What are the norms? Are there any norms? This is the new scepticism discovered by D. F. McKenzie from his study of the Cambridge University Press and applied to the Bowyers and the London trade in his celebrated article ‘Printers of the mind’ (see especially pages 5 ff.). McKenzie’s demonstration of the ‘unpredictable complexity’ of

work patterns in even a small printing shop has forced bibliographers to doubt the wisdom of many of their attempts to penetrate beneath the surface of the printed book. McKenzie’s lesson has had time to sink in, and has recently been given very wide currency in Philip Gaskell’s New introduction to bibliography. It may therefore be opportune to inquire what relatively normal procedures may be detectable beneath the un-

doubted complexities that meet the eye. This may be seen chiefly as an effort of refinement, but it is not only this. When Gaskell, following McKenzie, wishes to stress the complexity of work-flow in larger shops, his first example quotes the extremely wide range of piecework earnings among compositors at the Bowyer Press for the last

fortnight in February 1732, as apparently shown in McKenzie’s Appendix II (e) of ‘Printers of the mind’.13 The range given by Gaskell, from £1.35.7d. to £3.55.4d. is certainly surprising (a deviation from the mean of 46.9 per cent), although the lower figure has been misread from McKenzie and should read 4r.115.8¢. But the higher figure has been misunderstood. ‘The 4d. (of 4£3.5s.4d.) denotes the payment of four weeks’ ‘copy money’, identified as such in ledger C by the abbreviation CM, but not in McKenzie. The sum of 4£3.55.4d. is in fact one month’s earnings. One has to look elsewhere for the true range of piece-rate earnings for the fortnight which is from 41.115.8d. to £3.05.8d. This is a variation from the mean of 31.4 per cent—still considerable. (McKenzie also errs in mistaking a six-week stint by the apprentice, Joseph Nutt, as occupying a fortnight.)!4 With this cautionary example behind us let us look again at the confusion which first met our eyes. Do we discern a tendency towards shorter pay periods, from 25 in 1731 to 35 in 1733? [he rest of the decade shows this to be short-lived. But what about the irregular periodicity of pays, irregular in terms of weeks, that is; for wages are always made up to the Saturday. The whole process reveals an underlying rhythm when one

notices that pay is invariably made up to the Saturday before the movable feasts of Easter and Whitsun, and the Saturday before Christmas, and almost without exception to the Saturday on one side or the other of the quarter-days of 25 March, 24 June, and 29 September. Next, the marked fluctuation in the numbers employed from year to year, and at

any one time within these years must be set against the relative stability of smaller groups of more permanent hands, defined as those staying for a whole year or more. In 1731 there were six permanent hands, and five in 1732 and 1733, although these are not 13. Pp. 68-69; cf. Gaskell, New introduction to bibliography, 1972, p. 166.

14. Printers of the mind’, pp. 9 and 67.

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ni chs 8 mw a a) q = = nO Uk si a Ss aon s Fy = 5 rn Y 5) RY. ¢ nO a 3 a ro z nz OR 3 vo t+ a7 If Swift himself cannot be found in Bowyer’s printing-house, yet George Faulkner, Swift's Dublin printer of the early 1730s, often supplied the younger Bowyer with the master’s latest pieces. With this foundation to build on Bowyer and his young partner Nichols had by the 1770s amassed a large share in Swift’s copyright. {For further light on these dealings, see below, ‘George Faulkner and William Bowyer: the London connection’ (1993).} The literary giants are not to be understood in isolation, nor are they alone of their generation worthy of our attention. I find especially instructive their conjunction in the pages of the ledgers, as in the life of their time, with the merely ‘persistent’ authors and the forgotten.1¢ The literature of the past demands to be viewed not simply in terms of what posterity judges to be excellent, but as comprising whatever was printed to serve

the needs of contemporary society. This is the lesson taught by the ledgers. I have gone so far as to apply the term ‘index of civilisation’ even to the jobbing printing which

is excluded from most discussions of printing and missing from our library shelves, though amply represented in the ledgers.?” If the quantity and variety of printed works evidenced in the ledgers deserves close attention, how much more so the range of information offered about their production! There is scarcely a stage of production but is revealed in the several ledgers in the most intimate detail. The record begins with the receipt of white paper to print on, moves through the various stages of composition, correction, and presswork, to the itemised delivery of the printed sheets to the customer or his assigns. Here, and especially in the pages of ledger C, is the full revelation of the complexity of concurrent production in a major London printing-house. The list of those concerned in production and distribu14. William M. Sale, Samuel Richardson: Master Printer, Ithaca, N.Y., 1950, p. 29 and note 67, linking Richardson’s use of press-figures up to 9 with the number of his presses.

15. D. F. Foxon, ‘Pope and the Early Eighteenth-century Book Trade’, Lyell lectures, 1975, {now fortunately published as Pope and the early eighteenth-century book trade, revised and edited by James McLaverty, 1991}.

16. The ‘persistent’ as contrasted with the good writers are studied by Nigel Cross, in The Royal Literary Fund 1790-1918, London, 1984.

17. K. I. D. Maslen, Jobbing Printing and the Bibliographer: New Evidence from the Bowyer Ledgers,” Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 10 (May 1977), 4-16 {reprinted above}.

The Bowyer Ledgers: Their Historical Importance 187 tion, whether within or outside the printing-house, reads like a roll-call of the booktrade. Plomer’s dictionaries of printers are shown to be in need of revision—this much we already know, and much of the wherewithal to do this is supplied. The London printing of the time—as surely in other times—is shown to be a collaborative enterprise, drawing widely on the combined resources of the allied book trades. (I have elsewhere referred to the mobility of Bowyer’s journeymen as one sign of the cohesiveness of the trade.)!® Those to whom the works are delivered are by no means confined to the trade, nor to the ranks of authors, editors, translators, and the like. The many hundreds of others who take delivery of just a single copy alert us to the eager presence of the book-buying and book-reading publics of the eighteenth century. We have still nearly everything to learn about these. I will end with one particular example that will serve to show just how much our mental map of eighteenth-century English printing and publishing will have to be re-

drawn as a result of publication of the ledgers. I wonder how many of you would yesterday have disagreed with the statement of a recent writer in Publishing History: “Today it is simply not possible to calculate the size of most editions of most works.’!9 The standard bibliographies of the philosopher George Berkeley bear out this despairing remark. Let’s consider for instance the ‘second’ London edition of Berkeley’s Siris, so described on the title-page. This is the celebrated pamphlet praising tar-water as a cure for all ills. You may remember in Dickens’s Great Expectations that Pip and Joe were made to swallow an unwelcome dose. Even Berkeley, who like most enthusiasts apparently had little sense of humour, admitted knowing ‘a person who took a large glass of tar-water just before breakfast, which gave him an invincible nausea and disgust, although he had before received the greatest benefit from it.’ (Section 115 in the second London edition). Neither of the recent and reputable bibliographies, by T. E. Jessop (1973) and Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1976), could do more than take the title-page at face value, although Keynes did note much resetting in early pages as evidenced in the copies he had collated.2° How much more revealing are the facts disclosed in ledger B!

Here Bowyer notes that he had produced no fewer than five printings—to use this indeterminate expression, the first two charged as for new settings, the three others as mere reimpressions. Furthermore, we learn that 5,250 copies were printed, all within a couple of months. And, to complicate matters, Bowyer is recorded as having printed all eleven sheets of the first batch, but only nine sheets of all the rest. The intimate story of the 1744 London editions of Szris must wait for another occasion. Here and now | want in conclusion merely to offer three brief comments on these facts. First, | readily admit that the ledgers do not resolve all problems. Having closely examined fourteen copies of the ‘second’ edition I remain unsure whether it will prove possible to identify copies from each of the five printings, or to set these printings in order of priority. It may be that sheets from the successive batches were not always kept

apart. Secondly, the ledger tells us that Berkeley's pamphlet on tar-water was pub18. ‘Masters and Men’, The Library, v, 30 (1975), 81-94 {reprinted above}. 19. C.J. Mitchell, op. cit. (note 11), 6. 20. T. E. Jessop, A Bibhography of George Berkeley, 2nd edn. The Hague, 1973; Geoffrey Keynes, 4 Bibliography of George Berkeley, Oxford, 1976.

188 The Bowyer Ledgers: Their Historical Importance lished as well as printed by Bowyer. He must have profited considerably from this runaway success. We may begin to doubt William Strahan’s claim, made in 1771, that it was he who had taught London printers to emancipate themselves through the acquisition of copyrights from the slavery in which they were held by the booksellers. I note too that Berkeley is another of Bowyer’s Irish authors, whose copyrights he secured by being first to reprint their works in England, courtesy of his Dublin friend, George Faulkner. This was a quite legal two-way trade, as Mary Paul Pollard has shown in her 1987 Lyell lectures at Oxford. Lastly, I ask which is the better measure of the popularity of Berkeley’s pamphlet: to know from the books themselves that there were three London editions of 1744, the first (Keynes 64 and 65), the so-called ‘second’ (Keynes 67), and the so-called “New’ (Keynes 68)? Or to learn from the printer’s own account book, checked of course against the printed works themselves, that there were in fact altogether eight impressions, one of the first edition, five of the ‘second,’ and two of the ‘new, all closely linked, amounting to 7,775 copies in all, produced within a few months!

& =The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect ELBOURNE holds great attraction for me as the home of many dedicated bibli-

| \ / ographers, historians of the book (call them what you will), and no institution

in Melbourne, indeed in all Australia, keeps more or better such scholars than Monash University. How gratifying for me therefore to be invited by Associate Professor Wallace Kirsop, Director of the Monash Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, and with the blessing of the Vice-Chancellor, to attend this conference in my

honour! How typically generous of Wallace to name it after an outsider from the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand! I see just one possible advantage in the use of a personal name, any person’s name. Bibliographers, book trade historians, editors, textual critics—specialists of related interests, but with no generally recognized title to suit them all—may well be glad to gather for the time being under an obscure and neutral flag. The wide range of topics listed in the programme does more than testify to the scope of a discipline; it is a tribute to a Centre whose Director personifies scholarly breadth of vision. This characteristic Kirsop quality is not hard to find. Consider the title of the periodical he edits and for which he writes, Te Australian Journal of French Studies. And to underline the point I quote, almost at a venture, from his article ‘Literary history and book trade history: the lessons of L’Apparition du livre’, 16 (1979), 488-535: ‘Awareness of wider issues and of the place of the book trade in the economy, in society and in cultural developments is not incompatible with mastery of specific techniques of scholarship’ (p. 533). What linking of cultures, languages, and scholarly traditions! I am also delighted to have this public opportunity of thanking Joan Kirsop for much hospitality graciously given over the years. Joan’s conversation and cooking are in themselves worth many trips to Melbourne. I chose my title so that I could recall, with suitable brevity, how I began to work on the Bowyer ledgers and then anticipate, with publication in sight, the use others might make of them. I look back, almost with a sense of disbelief, over a period of forty years to the time when I first encountered the Bowyer paper stock ledger, the only Bowyer printing ledger then known. This was at the beginning of the era of Fredson Bowers. His Principles of bibliographical description appeared in 1949, while I was reading McKerrow’s Introduction to bibliography for literary students in preparation for going to Oxford. I was then a temporary junior lecturer at Victoria College (now Victoria University of Well-

ington), eagerly taking the opportunity of sitting in on classes for Professor Ilan Gordon’s new paper, ‘Methods and techniques of scholarship’. What did most of us in those days, whether in Wellington or Oxford, know or care of eighteenth-century book-trade archives? It was at Oxford, attending lectures on the Elizabethan drama by Originally published in An Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing History in honour of

Keith Maslen, edited by R. Harvey, W. Kirsop, and B. J. McMullin (Clayton, Victoria, Australia: Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, 1993), pp. 1-14. Copyright © 1993 Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University. Reprinted by permission. 189

190 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect F. P. Wilson and with the vast resources of the Bodleian Library to hand, that I began to see for myself that scholarship meant immersion in the original sources. One date is fixed in my memory. On 14 April 1951, Herbert Davis, my research supervisor, spoke on ‘Bowyer’s paper stock ledger’ to a joint meeting in Oxford of the London and the Oxford Bibliographical Societies.1 The defensive tone of Davis’s concluding reference to ‘such crude and often unreliable accounts’ was partly a reaction to prevailing scepticism about the value of such things. With a characteristically mild irony, Davis was glancing at Bowers, whose intellectual severity, not rendered more acceptable by its trans-Atlantic origin, was then disturbing those older-fashioned bibliophiles in the habit of noting the bibliographical ‘points’ of first editions. Bowers’s insistence on rigorous analysis of the book as physical object, central to his concept of bibliography, relegated to a decidedly second place the merely collateral evidence of trade and other records. Over the next forty years what mixture of foresight and obstinacy brought me to

this point where a pre-publication copy of the oh-so-long projected edition of the printing-house ledgers of William Bowyer, father and son, is now—thanks to Hugh Amory, who toted it all the way from Harvard—lying on the table! I have briefly chronicled my progress, as it seemed to me, both in my Preface to the book and in “The Bowyer ledgers: their historical importance’.? It might be tedious to rehearse it further. The joys and griefs of authors should not often be exposed. Instead, let us look forward to the use that will be made of this edition. I can now confidently assert, where Davis seemed unsure, that you will find no better source for

understanding the eighteenth-century London book trade than the printing-house ledgers of the Bowyers. Standing before this abundant and varied feast of good things, I will use no more time in preliminaries. Let’s sample as much as we can at a sitting. But first Pll describe the offering. The centre-piece is a Chronological Checklist of works printed by the Bowyers, father and son, between 1710 and 1777, or a little beyond,

allowing for works in the press at the younger Bowyer’s death. The items in this Checklist are keyed, wherever possible, to entries in the ledgers. Here you will see the bibliographer and the archive historian working as one, a combination of functions practised and recommended in the mid-sixties by Professor D. F. McKenzie in his great work, The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712 (1966). You will also find an Index of Names and Titles, a very extensive one of 136 pages, in double columns, with 78

lines to the page. There is also a short but I hope very useful Topical Index. In their present shape these two indexes are largely the work of John Lancaster. John was appointed as publishers’ editor in 1986, when the Bibliographical Society of America joined with its London counterpart to publish this edition. Since then John and I have had so equal and fruitful a collaboration that I have gladly welcomed him as co-editor. The work is ‘Maslen and Lancaster’. The edition also contains an Introductory Commentary and four considerable Appendixes. I shall not discuss these today, nor the microfiche facsimile of the ledgers themselves which will accompany the book of edito-

rial apparatus. Now for some particular examples, taken first from just the last two pages of the Checklist, {reproduced below, pp. 194-95} in reduced size. 1. The paper was published in The Library, v, 6 (1951), 73-87 {reprinted above}. 2. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 82 (1988), 139-49 {reprinted above}.

Lhe Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect IQI (i) Two Masters: Five Thousand Works The serial numbers on these last two pages of the Checklist tell us that during a period of less than seventy years the Bowyers printed well over 5,000 works. (Appendix 4 gives an incomplete list of additional works printed by the elder Bowyer between 1699 and 1709.) I shan’t pause to refine this quantity in terms of sheets composed and reams of paper used, which John with his computer power could certainly do; indeed I once

laboriously did so for the year 1731. What does this gross total signify? Could we perhaps take it as a very crude measure of production for other printers of their time? I have recently suggested for instance that, by comparison with the Bowyers, previous estimates of Samuel Richardson’s productivity as a printer may be too low by a factor of perhaps five.? And what might this total of 5,000 or so produced by two printers over some twothirds of a century tell us if compared to the total of 250,000 items in the 1990 microfiche edition of the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue? (This is the total given in Factotum 31, April 1990, p. 3.) Let’s do some simple arithmetic. If one printer could produce 2,500 works during one third of a century, rather a long working life I admit, how many printers would it take to produce a quarter of a million works in one century? Answer: one hundred printers as active as the Bowyers, who were not the most productive of their time, could have produced the new ESTC total. However, we know that Samuel Negus reported 75 printers at work in London in 1724, and the British book

trade is known to have greatly expanded during the century, both in London and throughout Great Britain. Might not one infer from this admittedly crude calculation that the full printed output of the century must have been well beyond anything yet recorded by ESTC? Much of the increase would have been in jobbing. As you will be able to see from the ledgers, the Bowyers in those unspecialized times printed a great deal of jobbing. If there are relatively few pieces of jobbing in the concluding pages of the Checklist this is because Ledger B becomes highly selective as the younger Bowyer nears the end of his life. (John Nichols, as the younger and more active partner, was by this time evidently keeping the main accounts, which were presumably lost in his disastrous printing-house fire of 8 February 1808.) I conclude that ESTC, having cast its net wide to take in much jobbing and having made some rich hauls, must perforce have left many small fish in the sea. Here the metaphor falters, for ESTC can find only what has survived for two centuries or so, while jobbing printing is notoriously ephemeral. There was also an undeniably large increase in the printing of serials. “The Bowyers printed no newspapers, but the son’s regular printing of the Votes of the House of Commons—see Checklist items 5160, 5164, and 5166—constituted a highly regarded source of employment. ESTC of course does not deal with newspapers and periodicals, and here my calculations are incomplete. Nevertheless, while recognizing EST'C to be an astonishing achievement which is greatly changing our view of the eighteenth century, I think we should not be so complacent as to suppose that it offers us the last printed word from that period. 3. ‘Samuel Richardson’s books’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 12 (1988 [issued March 1990]), 85-89.

192 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect A related question may now be asked. How many printed works of those days will perhaps never be found? An answer of a sort may be got by asking how many works recorded in the Bowyer ledgers have not been verified from existing copies, even after long and strenuous search? ‘This information too is available from the Checklist. It has been collected and placed in the Topical Index under a dump heading labelled ‘Unidentified works (excluding jobbing printing)’. This is a very loosely defined category of about 250 items, none of which have been seen or located for sure. Hazarding some even cruder arithmetic, I reckon that 250 works out of 5,000 is a neat 5%. Dare I go on to suggest that five per cent of the more literary publications of this period have been lost to us? (The term ‘publication’ covers not only distinct texts but separate editions of more or less the same text.) More certainly, the ledgers will give us some idea what kinds of literature are less likely to have survived. Jobbing work is another matter again. It is shown to have existed in astonishing quantity and diversity--astonishing, that is, to many students of the book and the pamphlet but not to anyone who pauses to notice what printed papers come unsolicited each day into our post boxes and pigeon-holes to be glanced at and discarded.

(ii) The Missing Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook | Consider now from the two pages of checklist the “Entries of uncertain date’ {pp. 19495 below}. It is a wonder how few of these queries remain, because the later of the Bowyers’ two main account books (Book B by name) has suffered by fire and from

subsequent attempts to square the charred leaves. (The fire was no doubt that of 8 February 1808 in what had become Nichols’s own printing-house.) The result is that marginal dates, especially those indicating day and month, marking the completion of printing and the entry of the account, have sometimes been lost. Notice in particular item 5178 ([ca. 1740]), ‘A specimen of the printing types of W. Bowyer’. The specimen, and the Notebook in which it is contained are valuable prospects for further study. The specimen is one of the earliest known for an English printer. I have had much help with it over the years from Harry Carter, ever generous with his expert advice, from James Mosley, and recently from John Lane. The Notebook has much else of interest: inventories of types and equipment for the 1740s and 1750s and for the very end of the century, when John Nichols was proprietor. Nichols, ever systematic, even has a note of sorts lent to other printers. This is interesting, for, as you know, printer identification depends on the assumption that each printer, while in business, maintains his own stock of materials. Anything more than minimal contamination of that source by borrowing threatens to undermine this basic assumption. Now that my work on the edition of the ledgers is virtually over, | want to publish this related record. There is just one snag! The original has been mislaid, and repeated searches have failed to bring it to light. I hold two Xerox copies, one addressed to go back to the unfortunate library. {A photocopy of the original was deposited in the British Library of Political and Economic Science in 1992. For an account of the notebook, see below, ‘An editorial impasse’.} I have transcribed the text, but of course transcription will not do for type specimens. These I can probably reconstruct, if with much labour, from works printed

The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 193 by Bowyer during the 1740s. However, there are also many drawings of exotic faces, diagrams of lays of the case, etc., which present obvious difficulties of transcription. The Oxford Bibliographical Society has been understandably reluctant to entertain a proposal to publish. What should I do? I refuse to pretend that the thing never existed; nor does it seem sensible to wait, like Mr. Micawber, in the hope that the Notebook itself will eventually turn up. (111) Offprints, or What’s in a Name?

Before we leave the Checklist, let’s just glance at item 5159, with filing date ‘(after 29 May 1777)’ and author ‘Barker, Robert’. Nothing much to catch the eye here, you might

think, but is there such a thing as an insignificant fact? As my brief note indicates, Barker's work is a reprint of paper 30 in volume 67 of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The younger Bowyer was appointed Printer to the Royal Society in 1762, after the death of Samuel Richardson. Bowyer’s main task was to print the Society’s journal, but no doubt he expected other work to follow. Two points interest me. The first is a matter of nomenclature; the second can be investigated only by looking into the ledgers themselves. All of us would now readily call this job of Barker’s an offprint. To my surprise, I

found that this term was not invented until the late nineteenth century. “Offprint’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (in the volume dated 1909) as referring to ‘separately printed copies of an article ... which originally appeared as part of a larger publication’. This is just the term we need here, but it was not available until the 1880s. The OED quotation from W. W. Skeat, dated 1885, is quite explicit: “Various terms,

such as “deprint’, “exprint”, etc., have been proposed to denote a separately-printed copy of a pamphlet ... By comparison with “offshoot” I think we might use “offprint” with some hope of expressing what is meant.’ What did they call such things before then? Back in 1732 William Oldys had applied the term ‘pamphlet’ to the whole class of what he described as ‘little paper books’. Bowyer himself used no special term for the particular species of little paper book to which Barker’s piece belongs, as you shall soon see for yourselves. In 1762, Bowyer devoted a new opening of the Paper stock ledger to Royal Society

work. He headed the left-hand page with the words ‘Philosophical Transactions for the Royal Society’. The word ‘for’ identifies the Society as the customer. The entries which follow all concern the annual printed volumes of the Transactions. The facing page is headed independently ‘Account of those Papers of the Transactions that have been printed separately for their respective authors’. Under this heading are listed many individual papers, printed, so far as I have checked, from standing type of the journal and in quantities ranging from 6 to 150. It is clear that in all these instances the authors were individually responsible for ordering and paying for their own separately printed papers. This runs against the policy of all journals that I have published in. An instance of what I take to be the modern practice is revealed by a lively quotation under 4. ‘History of the origin of pamphlets’, reprinted in John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, 1812-16, iv. 98109.

194 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect

5159 (after 29 May 77) The Bowyer Ledgers [ 404 5159 (after 29 May 77) Barker, Robert. An account of sold by T. Payne and son, H. Payne, C. Dilly, and

the Bramins Observatory at Benares....Read at N. Conant; also by M. Booth, Norwich; J. Watthe Royal Society, May 29, 1777. By W. Bowyer son, Thetford; T. Hunt, Harleston; Fletcher and

and J. Nichols. 1777. Prince, Oxford; and Merrill and Woodyer, Cam4°. A* B? + engr. [L:1493.k.11] bridge. 1779. NOTES No. 30 in Philosophical transactions, vol. 4°. 59/4 shts (a-b* cl B-20* 2P®° 2R-2S* 3A-3R*

67, part 2, 1778. (3R2+‘3R3’)) + engr. [L:191.a.3 (lacks 2P3.4, 3R3); US:CtHT-W:Quarto DA690.T41.M3}]

5160 (20 Nov 77 ff., & see 13 Jan 30) Votes of the House of NOTES Nichols iii 259, viii 53: in the press at Commons, 4th session, 14th parliament. [General Bowyer’s death, listed under 1780. 2P3.4 paged title:| For John Whiston, Charles Bathurst, Lock- ‘292*-*295’; 3R3° paged ‘133*’; US:CtHT-W copy

yer Davis, Benjamin White, John Nichols (succes- seen by John Lancaster. sor to W. Bowyer). 1777/8.

1 of Commons, session, parliament. [Gen-

2°. 219% shts; nos 1-98; 20 Nov 77-3 Jun 78. [Lhlr] 5166 Ue Nov 79 ts oe See 13 Jan 30) votes of the (Gen

a B720-1. 208%/2 shts + [11] shts for nos eral title:| By and for John Nichols, Charles Bathurst, Lockyer Davis, Benjamin White. 1779/80.

1778 [Lhir|

NOTES No ledger dates. 2°. 215% shts; nos 1-107; 25 Nov 79-8 Jul 80. LEDGER B725. 216+/ shts [sic].

5161 (1778) Durand, David. La vie de Jean Frederic Os-

tervald. Chez T. Payne & fils. 1778. 1780 8°. 1 A-U® X°, [0:1186.e.19] 5167 (1780) [Gough, Richard, ed.] British topography. NOTES Nichols: 1777—i.e. begun in 1777. Bowyer 2 vols. For T. Payne and son, and J. Nichols. 1780.

ornament 186. 4°. Vol. 1, 114%, + 14% shts (m1 a-f* ¢? , oo B-5H* 51? 5K-5R* (S3+'*S3’; X44+‘*X5’; —2A4,

5162 (178) Rogers, Cave, &coleton of pints ing aa'2AS "246" 2B; 2014207, 4204

" +2E3;sold 2K1+ [signed ‘*2K2’,en‘2K3’, cessor to Mr. Bowyer, by* John Boydell, ; x: (+ :, (2:.un2. raver, Benjamin White, Peter Molini. 1778. signed)]; 2M2+"'2M3'; 2N4+'2N5; 2P4+2y"; preven es De eee bn 2Q3+*2Q4; 2T1+'*2T2’; —2U3,4 +'*2U3" 3y4 2 - Vol 1, 58 shts (1 2x Ble B-3I 3K 1); vol. 2, [signed ‘9U3’ through ‘2U6’]; —2X3,4 +2X3.4;

NOTES Nichols: 1777: in the press before Bowyer’s —3D3, +5x? [5x1 signed ‘3D3’]; +3G2; +3H3;

death. +3K3 [cancel missigned ‘3H3’]; 3L2+*‘3L3’; 3R4+ 5163 (15 Jul 78) Biographia britannica. non nego aed sic); 44442" jai os LEDGER B655. WB bought 2 share for £5. 5E2+*5E* 2X5E4 3x54 4X%5R? [the additions NOTES Cf. 2nd edition, edited by Andrew Kippis, signed ‘5E3’ through ‘5E16’]; 5H3+‘*5H3’.‘5H4’;

1778 ff., 2° (L:2092.G). +5R4)) + engr.; vol. 2, 1119/4 + 33/4 shts (Al B-5M* 5N* 50-5X* (—Z4, +*Z* x1 [signed ‘*Z4’,

5164 (26 Nov 78 ff., & see 13 Jan 30) Votes of the House of ‘75? (+ 3 unsigned)]; 2G3+2y? [2x1 signed ‘*2G3’];

Commons, Sth session, 14th parliament. [General 2Q2+'*2Q3’; 282+'*253’; 3D1+3x? [3x1 signed title:| For Charles Bathurst, Lockyer Davis, Ben- *3D3]; 3244325"; 5C445C5’, ‘5C6’.[7]) + engr. jamin White, John Nichols (successor to W. Bow- [L:455.c.2-3; O:258.d.94-5; O:Douce G.558-9]

yer). 1778/9. NOTES Nichols iii 256, viii 69-70: in the press at

2°. 220 shts; nos 1-123; 26 Nov 78-3 Jul 79. [Lhlr] Bowyer’s death. The formula of collation has been LEDGER B722-4. 218 shts + [27/2] shts for no. 56; presented in simplified form. This is the second

no. 9 is entered as 2 shts instead of 1’/2. enlarged edition; first edition entitled Anecdotes of

NOTES No ledger dates. British topography, 1768. Collation based on O: 1779

258.d.94-5 [=R] and O:Douce G.558-9.

5168 (1 Nov 80 ff., & see 13 Jan 30) Votes of the House

5165 (1779) Martin, Thomas. The history of the town of Commons, 1st session, 15th parliament. [General

of Thetford, in the counties of Norfolk and Suf- title:] By and for John Nichols, Charles Bathurst, folk. [Ed. Richard Gough.] By and for J. Nichols: Lockyer Davis, Benjamin White. 1780/1.

The Bowyer Ledgers, p. 404

The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 195

405 | Checklist of Printing, 1710-1777 (Uncertain date) 5179 2°. 241 shts; nos 1-135; 1 Nov 80-18 Jul 81. 5175 ([probably 1745-9]) Handbills.

[Lhlr] LEDGER B634. 500.

LEDGER B725. C. W. Cornwall Speaker, 2421/,

shts [sic]. 5176 (early or mid 1750s, & see 7 Jun 55]) Nelson, Rob-

1783 firmed.

ert. Instructions for them that come to be conLEDGER 8B522. 1 sht, 5000 + 1000.

5169 (1783) Domesday-book. 2 vols. 1783.

2°. Vol. 1, 192 shts (x? A-9G2); vol. 2, 114 shts (1? 5177 (presumably between 1754 and 1757) [Handwrit-

A-5X?). [L:687.1.7-8; O:Vet.A5.b.47] ten docket title:] Bowyer & Emonson. Dleejd of NOTES Nichols iii 261 ff. (under 1777): Domes- P[ar|tnership. day book, a type facsimile, ‘full ten years passing 4°. *. [(O:MS.Eng.misc.c.141 (fos 9-12)] through the press’, royal paper. 1” in both vols (ti- NOTES These four leaves at the front of the Emon-

tle plus contents) is of a much later printing. Fur- son Partnership Papers, presumably printed by ther information about Nichols’s part in this work Bowyer, perhaps near the start or finish of his

may be found in Smith, ‘Dorset’. ill-fated partnership with James Emonson, which ran from 10 October 1754 to 4 July 1757, contain

Entries of Uncertain Date printed versions of documents foliated 21, 29-30,

and 34-8 in the same set of papers. *1* contains ‘I.

5170 ({(—]) Architecture of Colu[...]. Copy of a Letter from [Charles] Spens and Emmon-

LEDGER P950. son [sic] to W. B. on the Proposal of a Partnership, written about June, 1754.’; «17-*«3" ‘II. A Copy of 5171 Number not used the Tripartite Articles of Copartnership between Bowyer, Emmonson, and Spens.’; and *3°—*4” ‘III.

Bowyer. Hand Writing.’ . , age round the world.

5172 ([ca. 1740]) A specimen of the printing types of W. A Copy of the Articles, from Mr Emmonson’s own [Lse:MS.coll.G.1521 (leaves 7-20)|

NOTES Listed as P13 in James Mosley, British 5178 ([after 1756, before 1761]) Anson, George. A voytype specimens before 1831: a hand-list, Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1984. As Mosley observes, LEDGER B674. [Inferred title], 35 shts pica, used the fragments (apparently cut from a single broad- 70 R [1000 copies], adverts cost £7.17s.0d, [Bow-

side specimen sheet) are pasted in a notebook used yer’s] share '/s or 125 books.

1700-1802 by the London printers Ichabod Dawks, ; ; oo,

William Bowyer the younger, and John Nichols. 5179 ({1759?]) Patrick, Simon. The devout Christian in-

Mosley dates the specimen ‘c. 1740’. The original structed how to pray and give thanks to God. of the notebook has been mislaid, but there exists LEDGER P946. Patrick’s Devout Xtian, 1250. a photocopy taken by Maslen. The specimen was NOTES P946 reads like a list of deliveries with the subject of a paper read to members of the Bib- a matching note of the number of copies the 20 liographical Society of Australia and New Zealand booksellers named are entitled to. However, ex-

in Melbourne on 27 August 1983. ceptionally, no dates are given, and it remains unclear what Bowyer had to do with the work. This

5173 (24 Apr [probably 1745-9]) Catalogue. may be the 17th edition, dated 1759 (O0:14010-f. LEDGER B634. 11/4 shts, 200 + 100. 258 [not seen]). The 16th edition is dated 1730.

Accurate information as to when the booksellers

5174 (9 Dec [probably 1745-9]) Catalogue. were in business might fix the date. LEDGER B634. 1/2 sht, 200.

The Bowyer Ledgers, p. 405

196 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 20 (23 Aug 10) Estats de la distribution du reliqua Notes Perhaps this bears a foreign imprint; US: de la beneficence de 1708, et de ... 1709, accor- ICN not seen, but apparently not Bowyer’s.

dée par la reine aux pauvres protestants francois 6

refugiez en Angleterre, et administrée par le com- 2404 (12 Dec 37, & see 8 Jan 42) Marivaux, Pierre

mitté francois jusqu’au 25 de mars, 1710. Chez Carlet de Chamblain de. [La vie de Marianne. ]

Paul Vaillant. 1710. LEDGER A41;C1559-60. Vaillant, La vie de Mar2°. Al B-2 K1. [Llp:H.9455.5(19) (Xerox copy ianne, Engl. 12°, 3/2 shts (E-M), 500.

".2

seen) | NoTES Not La vie de Marianne, Paris, Chez LEDGER A3. Paul Vaillant, List of the refugees Prault, fils, 1738 (BN:¥" 51178).

’ a t, ) .

contribution, 9 shts. 2465 (12 Dec 37) Voltaire, Francois M. A. de. L’enNOTES Bowyer may also have printed one or more fant prodigue, comedie en vers dissillabes, repré-

of the earlier lists: Liste des protestants francois, sentée sur le théatre de la Comédie Francaise le Chez Robert Roger, 1703 (Lip:H.9455.5(12)); 10 Octobre 1736. A Paris, chez Prault fils. 1738.

nae on oui” “ i Sonne recele 12°. A-H®. [O:Vet.A4.f.101]

“e | “a aun van ; , (Luu) LEDGER A41; P1011; C1559-60. Vaillant, L’enEstats de la distribution ... pour l’année, 1707, f di A shts 12°. 500 Chez Paul Vaillant, 1708 (Luu); Estats de la dis- ant prodigue, & sts 12", 900. tribution ... jusqu’au 25 de Mars, 1709, Chez NOTES Bowyer ornaments, including no. 132 on Paul Vaillant, 1709 (Luu). Under a brief of title. Not Bengesco no. 118 (BN:C.V.Beuchot 77 Charles II dated 10 Sep 1681 Protestant refugees & 247), nor L:636.d.18 with press-figures C6‘, 3;

were authorised to ask for and receive alms; the F6", 1. so-called Royal Bounty whose accounts are in question was inaugurated by William IT. The Li- 2468 (13 Dec 37) Greek nouns and verbs.

brary of the Huguenot Society of London which LEDGER A4l; C1558, 1560. Vaillant, 2 broadcontains the Xerox copies seen and others listed sides/1 sht broadside, 1000 + 1000.

above is on deposit records aducopy ; at L:479.bb.3. 2480in(4Luu. JanESTC 38) Almanac diable.

LEDGER A41;C1561-2. Vaillant,2% shts SP, 250.

IOOQA (1724) Purry, Jean Pierre. [dh] Memoire pre- oe senté a sa. gr. mylord Duc de Newcastle ... sur 2581 (17 Jun 38) Milton, John. [Paradise lost, speciI’ état présent de la Caroline & sur les moyens de mens. ] Paméliorer. (Col.:] Imprimé a Londres, chez G. LEDGER B350; C1571, 1577. 17 Jun 38, SpeciBowyer, & se trouve chez Paul Vaillant. 1724. mens of Milton’s Paradise Lost; 26 Aug 38, setting 4°. A‘ B?. [US:RPJCB:E724.P985m (not seen)] specimen of Paradisus amissus over again; 19 Mar Vaillant f Paradi ISSUS. NOTES Copy reported by Daniel J. Slive and Su- 39, Vaillant, specimens of Paradisus amissus

1724. ESTC records an English version, A memo- amissus, for Vaillant. Trans. by Joseph Trapp, rial presented to His Grace the Duke of Newcas- typis J. Purser, 1741. Foxon T449. tle ... concerning the present state of Carolina, 2655 (7 Feb 39) Rapin-Thoyras, Paul de. A new histo-

and the means of improving it (L:8175.d.91, 4°, ; i ‘th no indicat € or ry of England, by question and answer. Extracted , (1] pp.), with no indication of printer. from the most celebrated English historians. Par-

2271 (30 Apr 36) Voltaire, Francois M. A. de. Alzire, ticularly M. Rapin de Thoyras. 4th edn corrected.

ou les Americains. Tragedie de M. de Voltaire. A For Tho. Astley. 1739. Paris, chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche. 1736. 12°. A-X°®. [L:228.f.112; L:1485.k.23]

8°. Part, a® A-B®.... [(0:G.P.4(4)] LEDGER B349; P1032; C1580-8; $1655. Astley & LEDGER A37; C1535-6. Nourse & Vaillant, Al- Vaillant, 2nd edn [1.e. ptd by WB], 10% shts, 1500

zire French play, 3 shts (A a B), 750. Holl. demy, dd 7 Feb 39 (all to Astley). NOTES See Maslen, ‘Voltaire’. NOTES Bowyer ornament 177 on title. ESTC attributes the compilation to John Lockman on ba-

2462 (12 Dec 37) Crébillon, Claude Prosper Jolyot de. sis of half-title.

Les egaremens du coeur et de l’esprit, ou mem-

ni les ... icti

oires de M. de Meilcour. 2771 (30 Oct 39) Pineda, Pedro. Nuevo dicionario,

LEDGER A41;C1559-60. Vaillant, La vie de Meil- ned : aan onary: ‘pen cour, Engl. 12°, 41/2 shts (A/B, C/D, I/K, L/M, on Pe Vaillant. 1740. Ns

title), 250 + 500 titles; cancelled leaves. —_

Extracts from The Bowyer Ledgers, illustrating section (iv)

The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 197 2°. Part, 128% shts, (... B-60’ 6P1 ...). [L:69. ‘Monitum’ not to buy copies lacking the book-

g.9; O:Fol.Godw.205] seller’s name here subscript ‘I: Severinus’.

LEDGER A41; B352, 408; P1039; C1557-8, 1561- 2912 (21 Mar 41) Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau

2, 1564-88, 1590-7, 1607. Gyles, Woodward, Da- de. [Discours.]

vis, Vaillant, Millar, Spanish dictionary, 128% ; shts, 1000 Gen. demy, dd 1 Nov 39 (3). 15 Dec LEDGER B35#-5; PLO12. Vaillant, Discours de 37, proposals, 1 sht, 12 + 1000; 31 Jan 38, re- Maupertuis, 51% shts, 250; title reptd. B355: re-

ceipts, 1/s sht, 800. peated entry 21 Mar.

Notes Nichols: 1739. Ledger C ends at 5U; NOTES Cf. D ISCOUTS SUP la parallaxe de la lune,

Bowyer orament 18 appears on 6R1,2. Paris, Imprimerie royale, 1741 (US:CtY {not

seen]), pp. xxxiit + 133; also Discours sur les

2817 (8 Mar 40) Guerin de Tencin, Claudine Alexan- differentes figures des astres, 2nd edn, Paris,

drine. The siege of Calais by Edward of En- 1742.

gland. An historical novel. For T. Woodward, Paul Vaillant. 1740. 2964 (4 Sep 41) [Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Cham‘ o A® blainB-N’*. de] [La [O:Vet.A4.f.625] vie de Marianne?] 12°. LEDGER B352; P913; S1658-9. Woodward&Vail- A shts. 250. lant,40. Siege of Presumably Calais, 12/2 shts, 750 demy, dd 8 Mar NOTES La vie de Marianne by MariLEDGER B355, 444. Vaillant, Marianne Engl. 12°,

NOTES LM Mar. CBEL: translated by Charles

vaux.

Dennis. 2968 (Oct 1741, & see 1737) Boerhaave, Hermann. , Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis ...

2840 (1 May 40) Cicero. Académiques ... avec le texte editio Leydenis quinta auctior. Lugduni Batavolatin. [Ed. David Durand.] Chez Paul Vaillant. rum, apud Theodorum Haak, Samuelem Lucht-

1740. mans, Joh. et Herm. Verbeek, et Rotterodami, Joh.

8°. 1° a-b® A-Q* (+Q1) R-Z° (-Z7,8). [L:720.b.8] Dan. Beman. 1737. LEDGER B353, 418; P999(?), 1012(?). Durand, 25 8°. 251s shts (*4 A-2A® 2B* 2C1). [0:1512.f.65] shts A-Z a-b, 200 Gen. crown, dd 28 Apr 40(?). LEDGER B355, 444. Vaillant, Boerhaave, 25 shts

B353: Ciceronis Academica, 32 shts [conflating pica 8° FC, single leaf and title red, Cutting ye

with Valentia, Academica—see 28 Apr 40]. Name. 500.

NOTES Nichols i 343n, it 141-2. Copy seen bound NOTES Bowyer ornament 185 on title (*1'), others

with Valentia’s Academica. Cf. also 17 Mar 41. throughout. On *1’ the stamped facsimile signa2872 (Nov 40) Boissy, Louis de. Les dehors trom- tures of “D. Haak S: Luchtmans’ are appended to

peurs ou l’homme du jour. a statement that the auctor will not recognise

B353. L h 6 5 (‘non agnoscit’) any copies of this 5th edition not

LEDGER B353. Les dehors trompeurs, 6 shts, 250. bearing these signatures. There can be no doubt

Notes BN:Yf.7129: A Paris, chez Prault pere, that Bowyer printed this edition, and in 1741, not 1740, n° A-G® H’, was apparently printed in Paris. 1737; it may be doubted whether it was done with thority.

2876 (8 Nov 40) Boerhaave, Hermann. Libellus de omonny

materia medica ... quae serviunt aphorismis de 2988 (8 Jan 42, & see 12 Dec 37) Marivaux, Pierre cognoscendis et curandis morbis. Editio tertia, Carlet de Chamblain de. La vie de Marianne, ou auctior, accuratissima. Lugduni Batavorum, apud les aventures de madame la comtesse de ***. 2 I. Severinum. [col.:] Typis Joan. Wilh. de Groot. vols. A Paris, chez Prault, fils. 1742.

1740. | 12°, Part of vol. 1, 21 ...7B-Q'??R4; vol. 2, Al B-

8°. *© A-U®, [0:1692.f.207] U". [Privately-owned copy.]

LEDGER P1031; S1658-9, 1661. Vaillant, Mate- LEDGER B356, 444. Vaillant, Marianne, 2 vols,

ria Medica, recd 18 Mar 39[/40?] 31 R FC. 34% shts, 1000; reptd titles red & black, 1000. Notes Apparently a piracy. Bowyer ornaments NOTES Bowyer ornament 169 on title. See Barthroughout including 168 on title. *2” bears a ber, ‘Catchwords and press figures’.

Extracts from The Bowyer Ledgers, illustrating section (iv) (cont.)

198 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect ‘offprint’ in the 1982 Supplement to the OED. It refers to a ‘pamphlet (offprinted from the Scholar and mailed out gratis by the bushel to “prominent” educators)’. Was the practice revealed in the ledgers standard for that time? When did it change? Perhaps there is a greater variety in modern practice than I suppose. Since, so far as I know, no-

one has yet written the natural history of the ubiquitous offprint, I cannot be sure. Here’s another prospect for someone!

(iv) The Foreign Booksellers: Paul Vaillant I and II The view of the British book trade from the Bowyer ledgers is that of a gigantic orbweb, with our printers at the hub. This is true only relatively, of course, as George Eliot sagely observes in her novel Middlemarch, with the aid of a more scientific analogy: ‘a surface of polished steel ... will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles around that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement.’ For us, however, the light does emanate from the ledgers and shine on the trade around; other sources of light are not present. Let us then investigate something of the complexity and pattern of relations and events by focusing on the Bowyers’ printing for Paul Vaillant. Pages {196-97} offer, thanks to John Lancaster, a selection extracted from the Checklist of 18 Vaillant items out of the 49 to be found in the Index of Names and Titles. ] must explain that there were two London booksellers by that name. Paul, the Huguenot refugee, is said to have set up as a foreign bookseller in the Strand sometime in the late 1690s and died in 1739. The second Paul was his grandson, who entered the business sometime in the 1730s and died in 1802, in his eighty-seventh year. (I do not vouch for these dates, although I have consulted Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes and Plomer’s Dictionaries, as well as a copy of W. B. Vaillant’s The Vaillant Family, second edition, 1928, held in the library of the Huguenot Society of London housed in University College Library, London. In the case of many other booksellers, the ledgers, together with related imprints, enable extensions to the dates of operation suggested by Plomer, but not for the Vaillants.) I have chosen entries which show the Vaillants, chiefly Paul II, as foreign booksellers with Continental connections, working both within and beyond national boundaries. Robert Darnton reminds us that “The book is older than the nation-state, and it is international by nature’.° But bibliographers and historians of the book are, with a few honourable exceptions, some here in this room, a notably patriotic breed. Checklist item 20 (23 Aug 1710) is informative but not surprising. Who but Paul Vaillant I would have published the successive accounts of the distribution of the Royal Bounty collected for Huguenot refugees in Britain? The elder Bowyer, for his part, had for some years been printing works in French, as well as Spanish and Latin. (The 5. Histoire du livre, Geschichte des Buchwesens: an agenda for comparative history’, Publishing History, 22 (1987), 33-41.

The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 199 evidence is in Appendix 4, which offers a list of a hundred or so works printed between 1699 and 1709.) I wonder in passing if the Bowyers ever employed refugee workmen?

The father, as a well-known Nonjuror, might be expected to sympathize with those persecuted for their Protestantism. However, we know mainly the compositors and pressmen employed during the 1730s, but little about their family background—see the Topical Index under “Workmen’. C. J. Mitchell has remarked that ‘Huguenot refugees can be found in the printing trade [of London] during the early decades’ of the eighteenth century. Mitchell further refers to the Histoire de Charles XII ... Seconde édition, révuié &8 corrigée par lauteur, A Basle, chez Christophe Revis, 1732, as having Europeanstyle quotation marks in Part J, which was printed by Bowyer (Checklist item 1794). Ledger C tells us that the compositor was Robert Dennett, briefly helped by Benjamin

Tarratt, but I can tell you nothing to the point about the origins of these men, and of course they may simply have been following copy or instructions. The next item, number 1009A (1724), was a late and unexpected find. It does not appear in Nichols’s selection of Bowyer productions recorded in the Literary Anecdotes, nor is it entered in the Bowyer ledgers. There is apparently a leaf missing from near the

beginning of Ledger A, which would have had notes of small jobs printed March to December 1724. Perhaps this resulted from an accident with a bottle of ink, to judge from the state of the following leaf. Even ESTC in its early 1990 state did not have this work. Now turn to Checklist item 2465 (12 Dec 1737). This is Voltaire’s play L’Enfant prodigue, with imprint: ‘Paris, chez Prault fils’, although the edition was certainly printed by Bowyer. Here is something to add to my published list of “Some early editions of Voltaire printed in London’,’ providing further evidence of the lengths that writers like

Voltaire and their booksellers had to go to to circumvent restrictions placed by the French government on the free circulation of ideas. Such misleading imprints may well be the reason why I have failed to find a few other works recorded in the ledgers. See, for instance, item 2462 (12 Dec 1737), entered in Ledgers A and C as ‘La vie de Meilcour’. I strongly suspect that this refers to the work by Crébillon, Les E garemens du coeur et de lesprit, ou Memotres de M. de Mettlcour,

but I have not managed to track down an edition which fills the bill. See also items 2964 (4 Sep 1741) and 2988 (8 Jan 1742, and see 12 Dec 1737), both referred to in Ledger

B simply as ‘Marianne’ and thus presumably connected in some way. The second is positively identified as the romance by Marivaux, in an edition bearing a Paris imprint. The only copy I could find in an English-speaking country was one privately owned by a discriminating collector. Where else might such things be found? Anywhere outside Paris, I suggest. Indeed, I drew a blank on two admittedly hasty visits to the Bibliothéque Nationale. The first ‘Marianne’ remains a puzzle. Perhaps, on second thoughts, I should not have attributed it to Marivaux. However, the ledger title is indexed and so I hope little or no harm has been done. The biggest surprises are items 2876 (8 Nov 1740) and 2968 (Oct 1741, and see 1737), which look very much like piratical editions of works by the most famous Dutch physi6. ‘Quotation marks, national compositorial habits and false imprints’, The Library, v1, 5 (1983), 359-84. 7. The Library, v, 14 (1959), 287-93 {reprinted above}.

200 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect cian of the century, Hermann Boerhaave. Notice in item 2968 the ledger entry ‘Cutting ye name’, which must refer to the cutting of a block to stamp the facsimile signature of the bookseller Luchtmans, meant of course to guard against imitations. The Bowyers were by all accounts men of exceptional probity. I wonder what the full story of these editions is, and who will one day tell it, using the ledger record to do so. These are evidently no isolated cases. Robert Darnton, in his recent ‘Agenda for comparative history’ (quoted above), remarks that ‘Counterfeit editions were a crucial ingredient in the book trade of both France and Germany [I add, ‘and perhaps of England too’) ... we do not even have a clear idea of how contemporaries understood and practised piracy (or counterfeiting) (p. 34). And the editor of The Book Collector, reviewing volume 2 of the wide-ranging Histoire de lédition francaise (ed. H.-J. Martin and Roger Chartier, 1983), asks plaintively, presumably with an eye on work by Giles Barber and myself: ‘What too of Bowyer and Voltaire and Marivaux La Vie de Marianne, and all those other French books prudently printed across the Channel?’ (34 [1985], 24-25).

(v) London reprints of Dublin originals: Swift and Pope” Finally, I offer immediately below a sample from the Topical Index, the entry ‘Dublin: — reprint of a work first printed in’, where again the London book trade can be seen reaching across national barriers. Dublin: — reprint of a work first printed in: [1716, 1729:] 316, 1446, 1471, 1478-9 [1730-6:] 1491, 1503, 1547, 1729, 1734-5, 17375 1751, 1753, 1772, 1775-6, 1813, 1816, 1900, 1910, 209Q, 2221, 2283, 2308 L1741-9:] 2954, 3159, 3163, 3196-7, 3200-4, 3236, 3303, 3337s 3351s 3305, 3374» 3379» 3389, 3396, 3419, 3545

[1751-63:] 3715, 3771, 3778, 3821, 3823, 3866, 4140-1, 4189, 4203, 4426

Here, in the works represented by these Checklist numbers, we shall find the mirror image, slightly distorted, of a phenomenon discussed in M. Pollard’s newly published Lyell Lectures: Dublin’s trade in books 1550-1800 (1989). Pollard explains that Dublin booksellers and printers were able to thrive for most of the eighteenth century by reprinting for their local market works originally printed in London. The London booksellers, who had been used in the previous century to a captive market in Ireland, naturally resented even this much Irish initiative. Nevertheless, it was perfectly legal, based on the fact that the English Copyright Act of 1709 did not cover Ireland. (The extension came in 1801, immediately after the passing of the Act of Union of 1800.) The Bowyer ledgers offer many instructive examples of this reverse process. The mechanism was simple, trade operated, and trade regulated. To put it simply, the first member of the London trade to secure a likely copy originally printed in Dublin could usually safely reprint it without suffering competition from his peers. What more promising copy than works by Jonathan Swift first printed in Dublin! I only open the 7a. {See below, ‘George Faulkner and William Bowyer: The London connection’.}

The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 201 topic. To do it justice would require a young hero of either sex to undertake a second and more thorough revision of the Teerink bibliography of Swift, based on a thorough investigation of both the printed books and their socio-economic context. This should be someone (or two or three) as highly competent and dedicated as David Vander Meulen, whose impressive paper “The Dunciad in Four Books and the bibliography of Pope’ has recently appeared.® Between 1729 and 1763 the ledgers show that the Bowyers printed at least 56 works

originally printed in Dublin. Of these, two have not been seen; 54 announce in the imprint, or occasionally elsewhere on the title page, that they have been reprinted from the Dublin edition. In only four instances does Bowyer’s name appear in the imprint, once merely as printer. (All four are works written by Robert Clayton, bishop of Clogher, and all belong to the early 1750s. Both Mary Pollard and John Nichols before her explain that Clayton gave Bowyer copyright of these works.) Yet Bowyer is named in the ledgers as being sole or part owner of the reprint in at least 46 of these items. He may also be included in the few references to unspecified ‘partners’. Three authors chiefly contributed to this total: Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley, and Robert Clayton. This reverse traffic is briefly discussed by Pollard, mainly with reference to Clayton. She also quotes a letter of 1753 from George Faulkner in Dublin to his old friend William Bowyer: ‘I have now two [pieces] in my House which I will send you from the Press, to publish immediately after me. Your sending of pamphlets, etc. to me are [sic] extreamly useful; altho’ I reprint very few of them, I have an opportunity of obliging many Friends’ (p. 100). Pollard suggests that this should be described as an ‘exchange of copyright’. ‘This cannot be strictly true, for if the Dubliner could scarcely be prevented from reprinting London successes, not being bound by the English Copyright Act, how much freer was the London tradesman in the complete absence of a corresponding Irish act of parliament! No one doubts that the Bowyer-Faulkner relation was of long standing, going back to the mid-1720s, when, as Faulkner himself explained in a letter written late in life, he had worked for the Bowyers in London and been treated with unusual kindness. Nevertheless, the earliest date offered by Pollard for their collaboration in the reprint trade is 1745. Similarly Robert E. Ward, author of Prince of Dublin printers: the letters of George Faulkner (University Press of Kentucky, 1972), remarked in a letter to me of 22 November 1969 that ‘Faulkner corresponded with Bowyer, but the available evidence of this occurs only in Faulkner’s letter to Bowyer for 1 October 1745’—the very letter quoted by Pollard and printed in John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. 3, p. 208. However, the ledgers reveal an explicit connection with Faulkner early in 1730, with reference to Checklist item 1545 (24 Apr 1730), A Vindication of his Excellency the Lord C—t, London, printed for T. Warner, 1730. ‘This work is charged to the account of ‘Faulkner & WB’. ESTC (microfiche edition, 1983) notes no prior Dublin edition, only one with the imprint ‘London: printed, and Dublin re-printed’. Confirmation of the ledger record does exist, coming from Swift himself. I quote from Harold Williams’s edition of Swift’s Correspondence (volume 5, appendix xxii, p. 8. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 83 (1989), 293-310.

202 The Bowyer Ledgers: Retrospect and Prospect 255 n.):8* ‘Whereas severall scattered Papers in prose and verse for three or four years last

past, were printed in Dublin by Mr George Faulkner, some of which were sent in Manuscript to Mr William Bowyer of London, Printer, which pieces are supposed to be written by me, and are now by the means of the Reverend Mathew Pilkington who delivered or sent them to the said Faulkner and Bowyer, become the property of the s° Faulkner and Bowyer, I do here without specifying the said Papers, give up all manner of right I may be thought to have in the said Papers, to Mr Mathew Pilkington aforesaid, who informs me that he intends to give up the said right to Mr Bowyer aforesaid. Witness my hand. Jul. 22. 1732 Jonath: Swift. From the Deanry-House in Dublin.’ Pilkington, in a follow-up letter to Bowyer of 28 August 1732, begins: ‘I have sent you some of the pamphlets I promised, in as large a parcel as I could venture. The Dean has, with his own hand, made some alterations in some of them ... I send you a catalogue of some of those pieces which you are entitled to print’ (Williams, pp. 255-56). There follows a list of 18 titles, corresponding more or less, so far as I have checked, to many of Bowyer’s London reprints. I think it can be said that Bowyer would not have

needed such express permissions had he not been obliged to defend his customary rights against the most powerful author of the day. Alexander Pope, intent on publishing “The third volume’, actually the fourth, of his Misce//anies,? which included works by Swift, came up against Bowyer’s polite refusal to give up what he regarded as his copies. Finally, in a letter to Pilkington, perhaps of October 1732, Pope had to give ground, though evidently willing to put Bowyer in the wrong (‘I find he is a true Bookseller’) and himself in the right (‘I have done what Bowyer desired’). As I read the letter, Pope will not acknowledge the exact legal position, which certainly is hostile to the author's rights, though he repeats Swift’s very precise explanation that ‘his Intention was nothing of a perpetuity, but a Leave only to reprint to Mr. Falkner & him, with promise not to molest ‘em by any Interest of his as to such pieces as were imputed to him. He declares he had no thought of giving them a perpetuity, but a Permission to the former end only, “however Faukner & Boyer may have contrived to turn those papers into a Property.” ‘These are his words’ (Williams, p. 257). Swift was well advised not to stand in the way of the London bookseller, guilty of breaking no law and a friend of his friends. The next bibliographer of Pope or Swift can be expected to give a more thorough account of these ‘tangled negotiations’, as George Sherburn has termed them.1° My aim today has been rather to stimulate your appetite so that you will make a start on the ledgers for yourselves, and find out what they hold for you. I believe you are unlikely to be disappointed. Now that my involvement in this edition is nearly over, my greatest satisfaction will be to see it put to many good uses in stimulating research into eighteenth-century book trade history.

8a. {All quotations of Williams’s edition in this paragraph are from the 1972 revised printing of vols. IV-V (see the ‘Note to the corrected impression (1972)’ by David Woolley, on pp. xix-xxi of vol. IV).} 9. R. H. Griffith, Alexander Pope, a bibliography, 1922, item 276. 10. George Sherburn, ed., The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, vol. 3, 1956, p. 306 n.

& Slaves or Freemen? The Case of William Bowyer, Father and Son, Printers of London, 1699-1777" RINTERS in London during the first half of the eighteenth century have been

Pricer as drudging for the bookseller, not unlike Hogarth’s poor poet in his

garrett. The classic statement comes from William Strahan, who claimed in 1771 to have ‘made the name of printer more respectable than ever it was before, and taught them to emancipate themselves from the Slavery in which the Booksellers held them.’? This is a view too decidedly drawn by an authoritative hand to have been seriously

questioned. If Strahan was boasting a little, who could blame him? The friend of Benjamin Franklin was justifiably proud of his position as the most successful printer in

London. How far he had risen since arriving from Scotland in the mid 1730s to find work with the Bowyers as a journeyman-compositor!3 Strahan’s eminence is undeniable, but were printers before him as unadventurous as he suggests? ‘I quickly saw’, he confides to a young friend in America, ‘if I confined myself to mere printing for Booksellers I might be able to live, but very little more than live, I therefore soon determined to launch out into other Branches, in connection with my own, in which I have happily succeeded to the Astonishment of the rest of the Trade here, who never dreamt of going out of the old beaten track.’ Were London printers before Strahan bound by copper chains to the booksellers, the publishers of their day? Were there no other sources of work, no alternative customers? A means of testing Strahan’s assertions is offered by the well-documented case of the Bowyers, father and son, printers in London between 1699 and 1777—the father died in 1737, the son in 1777. Strahan’s own letter will help in drawing the lines of enquiry. No one would doubt the closeness of the relation between eighteenth-century London printers and booksellers. ‘This is shown by the elder Bowyer’s decision to locate his business, first in Little Britain, near Paternoster Row and St. Paul’s Churchyard, traditional home of the English book trade, and then shortly after to move to the newly developed area of Whitefriars. ‘This was near the rapidly growing West End of 1. This paper, originally titled “An eighteenth-century printer and his clients: William Bowyer father and son’, was read in a somewhat shorter version on 10 September 1987 to the Friends of the Harvard College Library, Harvard University. 2. Letter of 15 June 1771 to David Hall in Philadelphia, printed in full in R. A. Austen-Leigh, “William Strahan and his ledgers’, The Library, 1v, 3 (1923), 261-87.

3. K. 1. D. Maslen, “William Strahan at the Bowyer Press 1736-8’, The Library, v, 25 (1970), 250-51 {reprinted above}. Originally published in Writers, Books, and Trade: An Eighteenth-Century English Miscellany for Willi-

am B. Todd (New York: AMS Press, 1993), pp. 145-55. Copyright © 1993 by AMS Press. Reprinted by permission.

203

204 Slaves or Freemen? Fleet Street, home of the up-and-coming Bernard Lintott (Lintot from 1717), and the Tonsons, both major patrons of Bowyer the elder. When over a century later the firm, now Nichols and Son, shifted further west near the Houses of Parliament in order to meet the peculiar demands of this one very important non-commercial client, the printer found too late that he had ‘sustained a serious loss from the falling off of many of their old connections in business, in consequence of their removal’.4 Undoubtedly it was the booksellers who supplied most of the Bowyers’ work. The Bowyer ledgers show that in 1731, for example, three out of every four sheets of text set in type were done on behalf of booksellers.> Again, in 1717, of forty-four works completed, nearly all were done for the booksellers. Just over half this number were printed for three customers: Henry Clements, William Innys, and Bernard Lintot. It may be that these three were in so large a way of business that whatever work they chose to parcel out to Bowyer among others features prominently in his accounts. More likely he was one of a small group of preferred printers to whom they normally turned. (It should be possible to find out by consulting the Ezghteenth-century short-title catalogue, although imprints naming two or more booksellers would complicate the problem.) Occasionally it becomes possible to see more closely into the nature of the relation between printer and bookseller. In 1752, for instance, when the younger Bowyer printed the fourth edition of Robert Ainsworth’s Latin Dictionary in company with four other printers, he charged thirty shillings a sheet ‘so agreed upon by the Printers: afterwards 28s.’ Bowyer then adds a sour note: ‘recd as in full what Mr Longman thought proper to pay’. The printers had evidently combined to fix a price, but Longman, of all the booksellers, stuck out for a lower rate, and got it. The others had to meet the printers’ demands. But who in this case were the slaves? Whether or not the printers or the booksellers got their price, the practice of giving only part of a work to a particular printer, illustrated by this example, could not have pleased the printer. The younger Bowyer complains in 1763: ‘Of two Volumes, the removing one away to another Printer is a crust I have been forced to devour all my life’.” Nevertheless, such heartfelt complaints do not permit the generalisation that the booksellers were ogres, intent on eating up printers as well as authors. It was this group who, when the elder Bowyer lost his printing-house by fire on the night of 30 January 1713, acted promptly to set him up in business again.? He had been uninsured. Threequarters of a century later John Nichols, partner and successor to the younger Bowyer, recalled that ‘Mr Bowyer [the son] always held himself particularly under obligations to 4. Report from the Select Committee on printing and stationery, ordered to be printed 30 July 1822. 5. The evidence is now accessible in The Bowyer Ledgers: the printing accounts of William Bowyer father

and son, ed. Keith Maslen and John Lancaster (London: The Bibliographical Society; New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1991; available to non-members of the societies from Oxford University Press.) 6. K. I. D. Maslen, ‘Shared printing and the bibliographer’, Studies in the eighteenth century IV, ed. R. F. Brissenden and J. C. Eade, Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979, pp. 204-5 {reprinted above; see p. 163}.

7. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes, 1812-16, ii. 388, quoted in ‘Shared printing’, p. 205—see note 6. 8. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i. 58-59.

Slaves or Freemen? 205 Mr. Timothy Goodwin ... and to Mr. Richard Sare of Holbourn’.? And the younger Bowyer shows a similar sense of obligation when he bequeathes one hundred pounds each to Lockyer Davis and James Dodsley, two leading booksellers of the third quarter of the century.1° ‘These examples imply not slavery, but a symbiotic relation of mutual dependence. There were other means than friendship by which the printer could secure employ-

ment from the bookseller. The Bowyers had a wide range of types and in ample quantity.1! ‘Their patronage of William Caslon is well known.’ Their supply of exotic types was second to none. The elder Bowyer began early to specialise in the printing of works on English antiquities. His first Anglo-Saxon types, used in A‘lfric’s Homily on the birthday of St. Gregory (translated by Elizabeth Elstob, 1709) were burnt in the fire of 30 January 1713. His new Anglo-Saxon types, first used in 1715 in that same remarkable woman’s Anglo-Saxon grammar, eventually ended up at Oxford. (The story is told by Edward Rowe-Mores.)!3 The latest achievement was to have sole use of the Record type cut by Joseph Jackson for Domesday book, begun by the younger Bowyer and finished by John Nichols in 1783, but first appearing in John Hutchins’s Dorset in 1774. A Bowyer type specimen and associated inventory of about 1740 records four fonts of Hebrews (that is four different sizes), fifteen Greeks, three of Anglo-Saxon, one Gothic, Caslon’s Coptic, and seven of Black Letter.14 By sending his son to university Bowyer clearly hoped to found a dynasty of English Plantins. The son entered the firm as a corrector; the pair of them took care to employ other scholarly correctors, Nonjuring

clergymen, we are told. The customs of the trade could also be the printer’s friend. The younger Bowyer, having once printed a work or part of a work, expected to be given the reprinting, even to the twentieth edition. The Bowyer ledgers offer ample evidence that this was not just a peculiarity of his, but a habit of the trade, and with good reason. The printer had already shown he could do the job. When, exceptionally, this did not happen, Bowyer complained bitterly. He even thought fit to record in his last will and testament, with reference to Robert Nelson’s Companion to the festivals and fasts of the Church of England, that, whereas his father had been a friend of the author, and father and son had printed some twenty editions of the work, yet in the early 1760s this tradition had been

broken. The new proprietors of the work had chosen to disregard the old claims of custom and friendship. Perhaps the old man expected too much from the new owners g. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i. 60-61. 10. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, iii. 280-81.

11. As revealed in the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols notebook (Ms. Coll. G. 1521 in the British Library of Political and Economic Science); the writer hopes to publish an edition of this work {see below, ‘An editorial impasse’}.

12. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i. 361; see also James Mosley, “The early career of William Caslon’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 3 (1967), 66-81. 13. Edward Rowe Mores, A dissertation upon English typographical founders and founderies, ed. Harry

Carter and Christopher Ricks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. xxxv-xlii. 14. See note 10. 15. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i. 230 and i. 137 n.

206 Slaves or Freemen? of the copyright. By the 1760s the number of proprietors had grown to thirty-one, and Bowyer the son did not have his father’s readiness in associating with his fellow tradesmen. The fault lay partly in his temperament, partly in his university education intended to qualify him as a new breed of scholar-printer. John Nichols, always loyal to his old master, is constrained to admit that ‘from a consciousness of literary superiority, Mr Bowyer did not always pay that attention to the booksellers which was expedient in the way of his business’.1¢

A printer dealing with the booksellers had other levers than friendship and trade custom. The author could be persuaded to use his influence. Nichols’s Literary anecdotes are full of letters between author and printer showing how important and how variable was this relation. On 4 May 1762 Bowyer feels driven to expostulate with his friend and author, the Reverend Edward Clarke: ‘It is a mere joke for you to say you have not interest to recommend a Printer of your own work. You should have made it, as | told you ... a previous condition of the contract’.1? The author’s hard-headed reply needs no gloss: ‘when an author prints for himself doubtless he can choose what printer he pleases; when he sells the copy the printer is at the option of the bookseller’. Clarke has here mentioned a way for the printer to by-pass the bookseller, by ‘printing for the author’.1® In this case the author assumes direct financial responsibility for the work. He has to supply the paper and pay the printer. This had long been an option, but one seldom attractive to the bookseller, whose good will remained necessary if distribution through the trade was hoped for. Strahan does not mention this class of work, no doubt because it was not at all important for him. It was so for the Bowyers, learned printers operating earlier in the century, when this method of publication was more common. In 1731, for instance, almost one-third of the sheets set by the Bowyers’ compositors were done ‘for the author’. Imprints confirm the evidence of the Bowyer ledgers. The difficulties of distribution in such cases were often met by direct appeal to the book-buying public (per-

haps limited to the author’s friends) through the method of retail subscription. Alexander Pope, as we know, made his fortune from the gentlemen and ladies who subscribed to his translation of Homer’s Iiad. ‘The evidence in the Bowyer ledgers has been exploited by Donald Eddy for the Twickenham edition. Subscription editions were in their heyday between, say, 1715, date of publication of the first volume of Pope’s Homer, and 1756, when Dr Johnson issued a prospectus for his edition of Shakespeare. It was not the poets or critics but the scholars who most turned to printing on their own

account. The Bowyers with their respect for learning printed more than their share of solid works of scholarship, and were paid out of the author's pocket or from the usually scanty sales to subscribers. For them the greater reward had to be psychological, bringing ‘the most learned printer of the eighteenth-century’ close to the group with which he felt the most afhnity.1? 16. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i11. 270. 17. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, li. 400 n.

18. See K. I. D. Maslen, ‘Printing for the author’, The Library, v, 27 (1973), 302-9 {reprinted above}. 19. Nichols, Literary anecdotes, 1. 2.

Slaves or Freemen? 207 Printing for learned authors led naturally to printing for learned societies. While Strahan was working for the Bowyers, the young Bowyer was elected member of the Society of Antiquaries, and shortly thereafter became their official printer. ‘This was in May 1736, and Bowyer retained this employ for the rest of his life.2° Between 1739 and 1748 Bowyer printed all six works issued by the short-lived Society for the Encouragement of Learning. Thomas Tanner’s Notitia monastica (1744) was one of them. Its imprint is helpful so far as it goes: ‘London, printed by William Bowyer, at the expence of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning: and sold by John Whiston, John Osborn, Francis Changuion’. What it leaves unsaid is that the Society’s naive reluc-

tance to offer the usual discount to the trade was a major obstacle to commercial success.”1

Much more important than this was the young Bowyer’s appointment in 1761, fol-

lowing the death of Samuel Richardson, as printer to the Royal Society. For this, Bowyer was obliged to the Society’s President, the Earl of Macclesfield. The Society's usual booksellers, though customarily styling themselves in imprints and elsewhere as ‘Printers to the Royal Society’, neither chose the actual printer, nor paid his bill. A consequence of Bowyer’s new post was much printing of scientific papers on behalf of

their authors, whether the papers had previously been selected for inclusion in the Philosophical transactions or not. Along what ‘other Branches’ of printing affording Strahan both independence and profit might the Bowyers previously have ventured? Strahan in 1771 complacently records that he has ‘one half of the Law Printing-House’—this since 1761—and ‘the man-

agement of the King’s Printing-House’—from 1770. The elder Bowyer did not have the capital, nor his son the courage, to venture into the ownership or leasing of patents, even had opportunity availed. Nevertheless, the younger Bowyer showed that he understood the advantages of such monopolies, combining profits from production and sales. In 1765 he sent his young and eager partner to negotiate with the University of Cambridge about leasing the University’s privilege.2? ‘The London booksellers had also sniffed out the prospect, and the aging Bowyer was understandably hesitant. No doubt he quailed before the problems of management, as Strahan did not; in the event the University itself gave up the idea. For a printer desiring independence of the booksellers and a better than usual profit, law and government offered pleasing returns. From 1718 the elder Bowyer had a nice line in legal cases. The bulk of these, some two hundred between 1718 and 1755, were printed for Alexander Hamilton of Lincoln’s Inn, solicitor in both Chancery and the Exchequer. Hamilton specialised in House of Lords appeal cases, especially on behalf of Scottish clients, who resorted after the Act of Union of 1707 to the English House of Lords as the highest court in the land. These paid more because of the extra dispatch often required. 20. Nichols, Literary anecdotes ii. 87ff.

21. The Bowyer ledgers contain detailed accounts; further information is available in British Library Add. Ms. 6185. 22. Nichols, Literary anecdotes ii. 458ff., and vi. 627ff.; the supporting documents are held among the

Nichols Family Papers, in the Butler Library, Columbia University, New York.

208 Slaves or Freemen? The Bowyers had not a few other legal clients, but these were altogether less valuable than the printing for government. If Strahan, in 1770, came to print the Acts of the Realm in his new capacity as King’s Printer, the younger Bowyer, as long ago as 1730, had acquired from the then Speaker of the House of Commons the privilege of printing the Votes. This employ remained in the same firm under Bowyer’s successor, John Nichols, and his descendants, until 1940. The historical importance of the Votes during Bowyer’s day was as offering the only reliable day-to-day record of the proceedings of the House available to members and on sale to the public.23 Their importance to Bowyer was that this regular work, amounting to twenty-two per cent of the reams

printed in 1731, was paid at double the usual rates. The Votes themselves, and the Journals later compiled from them, name certain booksellers as the official printers, and occasionally Bowyer is listed among them. However, once again these so-called printers were in fact the publishers, making their profit from the sale of a proportion of the

total edition, a profit shared with the Speaker. The ledgers show Bowyer’s independent role as printer, despite the contrary assertion of O. C. Williams.*4 The younger Bowyer also printed over many years not a few Parliamentary bills and

reports, but not so as to shake the virtual monopoly of other Commons’ printing enjoyed by Samuel Richardson from 1733 and after 1761 by John Hughs. These two thus preceded Strahan in finding work not at the gift of the booksellers. Printing for the Company of Stationers, though not as profitable as owning Company stock, was likewise a perquisite reserved for printer members. By 1704 the elder Bowyer can be seen to print part of several almanacs and of the Singing Psalms, and this work stayed in the firm for at least the next three-quarters of a century. Since the type was kept standing for months at a time, the advantage was chiefly to the master and the pressmen. The latter were able to work off large edition quantities, in batches of ten thousand or so copies in the case of the Psalms, and at top speed, well over the ‘normal’ 250 impressions an hour. ‘The master’s particular gain was to be able to offer work at noticeably slack times late in the summer.” Jobbing printing is another line of work not referred to by Strahan, but carried on by the Bowyers for customers in most walks of life. The jobbing printer as a distinct species emerges in the early nineteenth century with the proliferation of display types. The Bowyers were surely typical of their time in interrupting their bookwork to execute mainly small jobs: advertisements, bills, labels, tickets, hymn sheets, and so on. The list seems endless, as do the number and variety of customers. Besides the authors, booksellers, lawyers, and societies mentioned earlier, there were such branches of government as the Customs House and Post Office, local government bodies, ecclesiastical authorities, London livery companies, hospitals, schools, and commercial and profes23. K. I. D. Maslen, “The printing of the Votes of the House of Commons, 1730-1781’, The Library, v, 25 (1970), 120-35 {reprinted above}.

24.O. C. Williams, Clerical organization of the House of Commons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 203, note 3; see also Nichols, Literary anecdotes 1. 392 for the friendship between Bowyer and Arthur Onslow, Speaker between 1728 and 1763 .

25. K. I. D. Maslen ‘Jobbing printing and the bibliographer: new evidence from the Bowyer ledgers’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 10 (1977), 4-15 {reprinted above}.

Slaves or Freemen? 209 sional individuals of all sorts and conditions. A sampling of all these is presented in my paper on ‘Jobbing printing and the bibliographer’.2® Perhaps the main value of jobbing work to the Bowyers was the contacts it brought. Strahan does name two periodicals he printed: the Chronicle and the Monthly Re-

view, but of course could not claim to be either a pioneer in this field or especially successful. Newspapers had long been almost a separate branch of business. Little wonder that the younger Bowyer, way back in 1733, was reckoning the cost of printing an evening paper: some fourteen pounds per week for a thrice-weekly of one thousand copies a time, according to a note entered in ledger B, second of the customer account ledgers. Strahan, writing in 1771, keeps a trump card till last: “Add to all this’, he writes, ‘the multiplicity of concerns I have in the Property of Books (about 200 in Number).’ But had earlier printers, had the Bowyers, not ventured to print on their own account, or had they done so only timidly and seldom? The first work to carry the elder Bowyer’s name in the imprint may have been at his own charge. This is 4 defence of the vindication of King Charles the Martyr. ‘London, printed by W. Bowyer, at the White Horse in Little Britain: and sold by the booksellers in London and Westminster’, 1699. Because no bookseller is named it is reasonable

to conjecture that Bowyer himself was the undertaker. Certainly the title, with its reminder that the Revolution of 1688 might not have seemed ‘Glorious’ to all, is consonant with Bowyer’s well-known Nonjuring principles.2” Nevertheless, when subse-

quently he prints, perhaps more than any other printer, the works of Nonjuring authors, he works as a rule for the booksellers, or much less often for the authors. It was otherwise with the son. From 1728, while father and son were still working together, until 1777, the last ten years in partnership with John Nichols, the younger Bowyer came to own all or part of no fewer than one hundred sixty-two works. (The evidence is there in the ledgers and in the imprints of the works themselves.) Seventy of these belong to the years 1728-49, long before Strahan reached his pinnacle of success. What were the son’s motives in acquiring these copies? Certainly not to be seen to challenge the booksellers at their own game. In over sixty per cent of instances where the ledgers show him to have a financial interest, Bowyer does not put his name in the imprint. In 1754, for example the imprint of Anacreon, Carmina ... in usum juventutis academiae Salfordiensis, names J. and F. Rivington as the undertakers, where the work is entered in ledger B to “Rivington & W B partners’. Undoubtedly Bowyer was seeking the greater returns possible to the financial undertaker of a best-selling work. Needless to say this seldom happened. Most of the one thousand copies he printed for himself and Dodsley of A description of the machine for the fire works ... to be exhibited in St. James’s Park, Thursday, April 27, 1749, ‘printed by W. Bowyer, sold by R. Dodsley, M. Cooper’, 1749, ended up as waste paper sold at three shillings and six pence a ream. 26. Ibid. 27. Bowyer is so classified in Samuel Negus’s List of 1724, printed in Nichols, Literary anecdotes, i. 288-

312. For the date of the List see K. I. D. Maslen, ‘Samuel Negus, his List and His Case’, The Library, v1, 4 (1982), 317-20

210 Slaves or Freemen? However, ownership of copy brought other surer if perhaps more modest returns. Ownership of copy conferred the right to name the printer. This may have been a major motive in Bowyer’s purchase of shares in such standard works as the Greek Lexicon by Schrevelius, and the writings of Swift. This motive is evident in a note in ledger B recording a settlement of account with Rivington: “Mr Bowyer relinquishes all claim to Kuster de Verbis as to ye Copy on condition he or his order shall reprint the same when necessary during his Life’. There was evidently another way of gaining the right to print. A memo in ledger B (dated in the 1750s) records that ‘William Bowyer [is] to print by Agreement as much as he laies out with Messrs Rivington’. Here the printer seems to be financing the bookseller, and making the latter dance to his tune! How did Bowyer obtain his copyrights? In the early years it was chiefly from the authors themselves and from his good friend George Faulkner, the Dublin printer. If Irish tradesmen could and did reprint copies belonging to London booksellers, for the English Copyright Act of 1709 did not operate across the Irish Sea, the English trade could return the compliment. It was a case of first in first served. Thus, thanks to Faulkner, Bowyer was able to print and claim the English ownership of a number of works by Swift and others. For example, Select poems from Ireland. Part II, 1730, 1s entered in the Bowyer ledgers to ‘“G. Faulkner and WB’ as partners, whereas the imprint reads ‘Printed at Dublin: London, reprinted and sold by T. Warner’. This small financial interest in Swift grows over the years until by the 1770s Bowyer and Nichols were major shareholders in Swift's Works, an ever-expanding corpus. By this time the London booksellers, rightly fearful of losing their claim to perpetual property in copyright, were more willing to spread ownership and thus forestall what they considered to be piracy. Bowyer in 1769 was permitted to buy largely at the sale of ‘copies and shares of the late Mr. Andrew Millar, which will be sold by auction, to a select number of booksellers of London and Westminster’.28 On this occasion the printer, and it was not Strahan, was competing on something like equal terms with the booksellers. In 1771, the year of Strahan’s letter, a list of “Books printed for W. Bowyer and J. Nichols’, placed on the last printed page of Cicero, De oratore, totalled twenty-six titles.

It may be supposed that all of these were to be bought at their new printing-house in Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street. How successful were the Bowyers in the terms which Strahan chiefly acknowledges? This is a deep question better given a summary answer at this point. Let me put it this way. Whereas the elder Bowyer had started, presumably with a little of his second wife’s money, and had lost five thousand pounds of his own and others’ assets in the fire of 1713, his son in 1777 died possessed of some sixteen thousand pounds sterling in the 28. ‘A catalogue of the copies and shares of copies of the late Mr. Andrew Millar; which will be sold by auction, to a select number of booksellers of London and Westminster, at the Queen’s-Arms Tavern in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, on Tuesday the 13th of June, 1769’. I thank Dr Hugh Amory for pointing this out to me.

Slaves or Freemen? 211 form of four per cent consolidated bank annuities plus a very well equipped printinghouse, a considerable stock of books, and a sizeable list of copyrights. ‘This is not to reckon a dwelling-house and extensive property gained by marriage.2? How comfort-

able if there could be only one interpretation of the past and that of memorable simplicity!3° Strahan’s attempt is not the one. His legitimate pride in his own achievement led him to do less than justice to printers of former generations whose enterprise is, like the Bowyers, not to be so easily categorised.

29. Nichols, Literary anecdotes iii. 279-81.

30. However, as W. B. Todd has reminded us, not only will free men do whatever they think fit, but the freedom of the press must ever deny us particulars of its operation’ (Directory of printers and others in allied trades, London and vicinity, 1800-1840 [London: Printing Historical Society,1972], p. vii).

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& An Editorial Impasse: The Dawks-BowyerNichols Printer’s Notebook FIND myself in an impasse, and wonder what to do. In desperation I consult a | scion a Concise Oxford to be exact. This explains that I have run into a db/ind

alley, from which only retreat seems possible, or worse still, I am stuck in a position from which there is no escape. How frustrating to any would-be editor! The source of my difficulty is a Notebook I began to work on about ten years ago. It had belonged to and been used by three eighteenth-century London printers, and by the wife of one of them. I possess a photocopy of this document, but the very existence

of this electrostatic copy might be said to be the root of my problem. The Notebook has much in it of interest to historians of printing and of typography, sufficient to make it, in my opinion, worthy of publication. And not only in mine, for in 1985 the Oxford Bibliographical Society advertised ‘An edition of the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook’ among its ‘works in progress’. Soon, however, the Society changed its mind, and decided that it could no longer accept my proposal to publish, not even in principle. This was no immediate concern to me, for shortly thereafter, with the invaluable collaboration of John Lancaster, I began the long process of revising and seeing through the press the Maslen-Lancaster edition of the Bowyer ledgers. (After many years in preparation, this was published early in 1991 jointly by the Bibliographical Society and the Bibliographical Society of America, with distribution to non-members through Oxford University Press.) The Notebook was brought to my attention in December 1973, at a Bibliographical Society meeting I had addressed on the subject of the Bowyer ledgers. Barry Bloomfield informed me that in the British Library of Political and Economic Science was to be found yet another Bowyer record. Generously, Barry passed over to me his interest in this work. Knowing that I had in 1966 enlarged my original plan of publishing the Bowyer paper stock ledger so as to include the related group of ledgers discovered in the Library of the Grolier Club of New York, he correctly supposed that I would embrace almost any further addition of material. Early in the New Year, just before returning to

New Zealand, I arranged to examine this new Bowyer find. Barry had thoughtfully given me the shelf-mark—or I should say call-mark, a term more appropriate for material held in a closed stack. The call-mark was and is MS Collection G 1521. (Ca//-mark brings to mind Shakespeare’s Hotspur answering Owen Glendower, who had offered to ‘call spirits from the vasty deep’: “Why, so can I, or so can any man, / But will they come when you do call for them?’) On that occasion however the thing itself duly appeared. The Librarian allowed me to make a photocopy of it, not a very good one, | This is an abridged version of a paper delivered to members of the Oxford Bibliographical Society on 31 October 1991.

Originally published in the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 16 (1992), 107-16. Copyright © 1992 The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand. Reprinted by

permission. 213

214 The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook fear, but, as it turned out, definitely better than nothing. | was also given permission to make ‘any use’ I wished of the contents. Smooth progress so far! It proved to be a quarter-bound book with marbled board covers. On its spine a label, perhaps added after accession, bore the inscription ‘J. B. Nichols and Sons MS. Book’. I decided that it should be named the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook, after its eighteenth-century owners, who alone had written in it, and not after any subsequent owners. The leaves of the Notebook measured 200 by 150 mm, approximately A5 in size. There were 94 of them, that is, 188 pages; but only 124 pages had writing or printing on them. Where had this latest Bowyer record been hiding all these years? ‘This was not hard to discover. The Notebook had entered the Library on 19 December 1939, from the recently defunct printing firm of Nichols. ‘Ten days before, a notice in the Times Literary Supplement lamented the passing of this firm, which had printed the Votes of the House of Commons ever since 1731.1 The first of the Nichols dynasty—John, the famous antiquary—no doubt acquired the Notebook in 1777. This was the year in which he succeeded to the printing business of William Bowyer the younger, with whom he had been in partnership since 1766. Bowyer evidently took possession of it in 1737, as executor to his Aunt Sarah Dawks, who died 6 June 1737. Before that it had belonged to Sarah’s husband, Ichabod Dawks, the printer of the celebrated Newsletter, said to have died 27 February 1731.2, I should explain that the relation between the Bowyer and Dawks families was close. Ichabod’s sister Dorothy had married, for her second husband, William Bowyer the father. And Ichabod’s niece, Ann Prudom, became the first wife of Bowyer’s son, also William.* Such a network of family relationships is typical of the London book trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Continuities and cohesiveness among the members of a trade imply convergence in practice. Hence by revealing something of the working methods of individual printers the Notebook will open a window on to the trade as a whole. Not quite so clear-cut as ownership is the Notebook’s pattern of use. Ichabod used a few pages at each end from about 1700 to 1704. The first dated entry is ‘March 1.

1700. Thereafter, little or nothing happened until the mid 1730s, when there come miscellaneous receipts, such as for porterage, having to do with Ichabod’s wife Sarah, who is variously referred to as ‘Madm Dawks’ and “Mrs S. Dawks’. One receipt, on folio 5 recto, for £2, signed Isaac Ilive, presumably concerns Ilive the printer and typefounder. An isolated entry (on folio 1 verso), dated ‘Febry 1. 1729-30’ and headed ‘A sure way to Destroy Buggs’, is written in an uncertain hand, possibly Sarah’s. I am assured by a very knowing lady of my acquaintance, who has lived in India, that this recipe is good. | therefore pass it on: “Take of the highest rectified Spirits of Wine, or Lamp Spirits, half a Pint, new Distilled Oil, or Spirit of Turpentine, half a Pint, mix them together; then put in half an Ounce of Camphir in small bits, which will soon Dissolve, shake it well together, and with Small Brush, not a Pencil, anoint the Bedstead, Curtain or Valens, (which it will not hurt or stain,) very well in places where the 1. 9 December 1939, p. 524. 2. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes, 1812-16, iti. 290-1. 3. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes, iii. 259 n.

The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook 215 Bugs or Nitts can harbour, and it will kill them all.’ Certainly, for the Dawks, the Notebook was of more personal than professional use. The next owner was William Bowyer, the son, whose fluent hand occurs freely on some thirty pages. The earliest dated entries fall in 1751—this is on folio 4 verso—while the latest date is in 1765. It may nevertheless be supposed that the younger Bowyer began to use the Notebook sometime during the 1740s; it is difficult to be more precise.

There is no sign that Bowyer’s father had a hand in the Notebook. He died on 17 December 1737, and had been in poor health during the last year of his life. The entries for which Bowyer was responsible, directly or indirectly, have almost all to do with the printing-house. The first use he made of the Notebook was probably for what is called on folio 7 recto ‘A SPECIMEN of the Printing Types of W. Bowyer.’ The first thing you would notice if you could see the original Notebook is that this title, and indeed the whole specimen, filling fifteen pages, is made up of printed slips, whereas the rest of the book is predominantly manuscript. (See the reproduction {at the end of this article} made from the Maslen photocopy.) These slips, totalling forty-eight in number, were pasted in. It was James Mosley who first suggested that these pieces had apparently been ‘cut from a single broadside specimen sheet’.> My reconstructed Specimen differs slightly from Mosley’s in more closely following Notebook order. I shall comment on it very briefly. First its rarity. ype specimens from the eighteenth century are uncommon, and type specimens of printers rather than founders very rare. I can think of only two or three earlier than this.® The Specimen is undated. Nevertheless, I believe that it represents most of the stock of types owned by the younger Bowyer sometime early in his period as sole master. Chiefly missing are the very large and the very small sizes, such as the case ‘full [of ] 8-Line Caps’ and the pearl roman and italic, which are mentioned elsewhere in the Notebook, the pearl no doubt being that regularly used for printing Bowyer’s part of the Singing Psalms for the Company of Stationers. Mosley tentatively dates the Specimen as ‘c.1740’, and this cannot be far out. Perhaps we should not worry too much about dating the Specimen, either as printed or as cut and pasted. It would surely be better to know when each individual face was acquired, and when it ceased to be employed. The Specimen offers some help with this process. Some entries have been crossed out—see for instance the English roman and italic number 3 in the reproduction of folio 17 recto. The cancellation no doubt means that these fonts were subsequently discarded. Later additions to the stock are recorded elsewhere in the Notebook. ‘There is for instance some roman and italic dated 4. Described at greater length in ‘A Specimen of the printing types of William Bowyer, c.1740’, a paper given at the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 26 August 1983. 5. See British type specimens before 1831: a hand-list, Oxtord Bibliographical Society Occasional Publication no. 14, 1984, item P.13. 6. There are for instance the Prooves of the Several Sorts of Letters cast by Joseph Moxon dated 1669—see

Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683-4) by Joseph Moxon, ed. Herbert Davis and Harry Carter, 1958; also 4 Specimen of Mr. Jorme’s Printing-House; which is now to be Disposed of is assigned to 1698—see A History of the old English Letter Foundries, Talbot Baines Reed, revised A. F. Johnson, 1952, p. 181.

216 The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook 1750, and a ‘New Pica Greek’ is listed among ‘letter to be added Sept. 1763’. You gain the vivid impression, not of a dead stock, such as is familiar from probate inventories, but of something never static, always slowly evolving. Other Bowyer documents record sales of type metal and purchases of types. A Bowyer receipt book reveals repeated purchases from Caslon between 1738 and 1742 amounting in all to some 4140, and this trade seems only to have increased with time.” During the 1730s, as I have recently had the pleasure of telling friends in Dublin, George Faulkner twice bought large quantities of types second-hand from his friend Bowyer.® All this, and much more besides yet to be gleaned from Bowyer records, is what you would expect of a flourishing business, and especially at a time when English type-founders were coming into their own.

What sort of a stock is represented in the Specimen? Again, I will have to be amazingly brief. A total of 64 faces is shown, plus 3 indicated only by manuscript headings (not displayed). ‘hese may be placed into 8 broad categories: Hebrew, Greek, Saxon (i.e. Anglo-Saxon), Gothic, Coptic, Black Letter, roman, and italic. There are 3 Hebrew faces (and 1 not displayed), 14 Greek, including titling fonts (plus 1 not displayed), 1 Gothic, 1 Coptic, 7 Black Letter, and no fewer than 17 roman and 18 italic (plus 2 each of these dated ‘1750’—not displayed). Most remarkable I suppose are the exotic fonts, which imply a learned press, and this we know from the ledgers to have been very much the case. The Bowyers were pre-eminent in the century for their learned printing, notably in connection with the rapidly growing tradition of English scholarship, so much of which is associated with the Nonjurors. (Bowyer senior was himself

a Nonjuror.) That there are not more faces may be explained as due to the fire of 30 January 1713, which destroyed the elder Bowyer’s printing-house. At that time he lost, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon he had used in Elizabeth Elstob’s English-Saxon homily of 1709.

Were 64 faces and sizes sufficient? That depends. John Smith, author of the Prinzer’s Grammar of 1755 (which I have shown to have been printed in the large establishment of Samuel Richardson), has this to say.? “To give a Printing-house the epithet of Complete, amounts to no more than a compliment, since (in a strict and literal sense) no Printing-house can be said to be complete, unless it is provided with all the Fusil Materials for Modern and Antient languages. But as it would be folly to attempt such a vanity that would only waste a man’s substance, it is sufficient for a well-establish’d Printer to be possessed of different Founts of Letter for the national language of the country where he is settled; and not to want such other metal utensils as are appurtenant to them ...’ (p. 118). By this standard Bowyer would seem to have been extremely well equipped. 7. Accession number 19473 in the Library of the Grolier Club of New York.

8. The evidence may be got by first looking up ‘Faulkner’ in the Names and Titles Index of the Maslen-Lancaster edition of the Bowyer ledgers. The occasion was the Autumn Seminar of the Rare Books Group of the Library Association of Ireland, held 4 October 1991 on the topic of ‘Ireland and the European book trade before 1800’. My paper ‘George Faulkner and William Bowyer: the London connection’ {is reprinted below}. g. ‘Samuel Richardson and Smith’s Printer’s grammar’, The Book Collector, 18 (1959), 518-19.

The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook 217 Printed Bowyer specimens occupy only 15 out of the 124 pages used. What else the Notebook contains I shall sketch even more cursorily. Almost immediately following the Specimen come three hand-written pages of “Rules & Orders to be observed in this Printing House’. These are in Bowyer’s hand, and they too are undated. As I published them in 1976 from the Bibliography Room of the University of Otago under the title of Bowyer’s Chapel rules {reprinted above}, I need say no more about them now. Next comes a manuscript inventory of Bowyer’s types and other printing materials and equipment. This occupies some twenty pages. The first page is all in Bowyer’s hand, suggesting that he began it and then handed it over to another person or persons to complete. About inventories, I may be permitted to quote from myself, from a monograph which reproduces an inventory and associated List of printing material, &c., prepared by the nineteenth-century printers Matthews, Baxter & Co. of Dunedin, New Zealand: “The close relation between inventory and Lis¢ is especially rare and interesting. Inventories of early printing-shops, more or less complete and precisely detailed, have often been published, but seldom are these associated with specimens showing what the typefaces looked like so that they might be identified.1© In the case of the Bowyer inventory and Specimen the relation between the two is certainly close, but not altogether straightforward. Specimen and inventory do not seem to represent the one single act of taking stock, and for the inventory too there is a problem of dating. What can clearly be observed is that the inventory is in two parts.

First comes a list of printing equipment and materials with an indication of their whereabouts in the printing-house, beginning with the ‘Little Composing Room’, going on to the ‘Press room’, and then to the ‘Great Composing Room’. The second part of the inventory lists much the same items, if more succinctly, but this time it supplies an estimate of the value of each item in pounds, shillings, and pence, and for the printing types the weight of each face and size in pounds (avoirdupois). ‘The weights are of course important. For instance, ‘Caslon’s newest English’, which corresponds to the No. 4 roman and italic in the Specimen, weighs 750 pounds—for the No. 4 italic see the reproduction of folio 17 recto. This is in fact a predictable quantity, for John Smith notes that ‘a Bill of Pica Roman, and Half a Bill of Italic, weigh 800 lb."44 Such quantities were needed by any printer in order to maintain production. Large amounts of type had to be literally locked up, or tied up, while the inevitably protracted process of proof correction went on. No good business man willingly refuses work or keeps customers waiting unduly, all jokes about printers notwithstanding. The order of items in this priced list closely follows that of the Specimen, although beginning with the roman and the italic (nos. 33 and following in the Specimen), rather than, as in the Specimen, with the Hebrew and the Greek. The inventory, like the Specimen, is undated; well, not entirely, for at the end of the priced list some dated entries are inserted. For instance, under the heading ‘Letter 10. K. I. D. Maslen, Victorian Typefaces in Dunedin, New Zealand, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Occasional Publication No.2, Melbourne, 1981, p. 5. u1. Printer’s grammar, p. 42.

218 The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook to be added Sept. 1763’ are listed five items, representing over two tons of metal. The very quantity suggests a lapse of time since the inventory proper had been drawn up, presumably in a single act of stock-taking. The inventory proper may date from about 1750. A peripheral note of material ‘In the Desk’ is dated “Aug. 1752’, while a reference to a quantity of type said to be standing ‘In Greenland’ must denote the work which Bowyer completed in that year, namely [William Goodall], The adventures of Capt. Greenland, a duodecimo dated 1752. The Bowyer ledgers reveal that he printed 12 sheets in volume 4 and delivered 2,000 copies from 10 March 1752 ({Checklist} 3740). Bowyer apparently gave up using the Notebook in the mid 1760s. In 1766 John Nichols was appointed junior partner, and he presumably began to keep his own set of accounts. These have been lost. The Bowyer printing ledgers, which comprise Bowyer’s own accounts, are very patchy from this time on, and are brought to a close—by Nichols himself—shortly after Bowyer’s death on 18 November 1777.

For twenty years Nichols did nothing with the Notebook. Then in 1797 he too used it for an inventory, not for recording his stock as a whole, but only that most troublesome part, the special sorts, and where to find them. There are some thirty pages of this, much of it in Nichols’s own hand, and all of it demonstrating his methodical attention to detail. Where Bowyer had characteristically been content to say ‘In the Parlour’, Nichols particularises “Closet No.2. 3rd Shelf’. Nichols, and Bowyer before him, used the Notebook to keep a record of ‘Sorts lent to different Printers —see folio

6 verso in the following reproduction. Nichols occasionally was a borrower, for instance of sorts from Caslon, the typefounder, but mostly he notes materials lent. A typical entry is ‘Mr. Strahan. Three Coptic words. March 7, 1801’. Such small quantities, in themselves and by their character, pose no threat to belief in the integrity of a printer's stock. Note that neither Bowyer nor Nichols writes of lending or borrowing printer’s ornaments! Nevertheless, the possibility of borrowing should not be disregarded. Nichols’s entries come to an end in 1802, whether or not to be carried on in another book one cannot guess. His printing records were apparently destroyed in his printing-house fire of 8 February 1808. The masses of Nichols papers in London, Oxford, Cambridge (England), and New York (at Columbia University) relate chiefly to his other activities as editor of the Gentleman’s magazine and various antiquarian publications.’12 Seldom do they permit glimpses of his activities as a printer such as are offered by his portion of the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook. I now must consider the editorial problem of coping with all this various material. I suppose that you would expect nothing less than the text 2” toto, with the printing types reproduced in high quality photo-facsimile. Naturally, you would expect an introduction, notes—especially to identify the types shown in the Specimen—and, of course, an index. JI have made considerable progress with all these tasks, including transcribing and typing up as much of the material as lends itself to this treatment. The work of identifying the types is the most challenging, but considerable progress has been made, even from the photocopy. Sixty-four faces are shown in the Specimen; another four dated 1750 are likewise shown, though apparently not part of the 12. For details of these records see The Bowyer Ledgers, pp. xlii-xliv.

The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols Notebook 219 original Specimen. With help over the years from Harry Carter, ever generous with his great learning, from James Mosley and his authoritative work on William Caslon, and recently from John Lane, whose energy and skill appeared just when it seemed mine were declining, well over half this number have been tentatively identified. However, I must now admit to the existence of a serious obstacle both to this work of identification and to prosecution of the edition as a whole. The original is missing! The only copy available is that which I made in 1974, or derivatives of it. You will agree that the photocopy is unsuitable for the exacting business of type recognition, and quite unsatisfactory for facsimile reproduction. Since the Specimen is one of the chief interests of the Notebook, an edition without it seems scarcely thinkable. And another half a dozen pages of the Notebook contain printed matter or diagrams and drawings of special sorts, which would be much better reproduced from the original rather than in type facsimile or in the form of redrawn diagrams. To be sure, I cannot go on!

Of course, the unexpected might happen. The original might yet turn up. The Library Archivist, Dr Angela Raspin, has suggested that most probably it went missing between the old Library and the University Depository in 1974. Repeated searches over

the years have so far drawn a blank. What is to be done? Should I pretend that the thing never existed? Should all that information be left in a bibliographical limbo, waiting for the original to turn up? I spent twenty-five and more years editing the Bowyer ledgers. Should I further tempt Providence by waiting for even twenty-five months?

Let me think again about that impasse, in its literal sense of a blind alley from which one is able to retreat. Why not in order to seek an alternative route? Could I not get round my problem by constructing a corpus of types to be found in works printed by Bowyer in the late 1730s and early 1740s? I know the books. I own quite a few of them, hence no problem of securing and paying for photographs. Such lists of types have been compiled for Caxton, and for the Cambridge University Press in the early eighteenth century. I would of course have the extra duty of proving that the types used in the printed books exactly matched those in the Specimen, or rather in my rather fuzzy photocopy of the Specimen. To do this in every case, and especially for the smaller

sizes of roman and italic, would be no easy task. Indeed, the smallest sizes would probably defeat almost any eye, no matter how good the specimen. Nevertheless, once I have completed my current project, a study of Samuel Richardson’s printer's ornaments, and with help from those more expert than myself, I mean to try what might be done. (You will easily guess that I have over the years gained a little familiarity with some of the types used by the Bowyers.) Only once I have tested the practicality of this procedure will I dare once more approach the Oxford Bibliographical Society, or some other publisher, with a proposal.

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® George Faulkner and William Bowyer: ‘The London Connection E have recently been reminded by a very knowing Dubliner of our acquain-

\ | \ | tance that George Faulkner, prince of Dublin printers, ‘had of course been

working closely ... for many years’ with William Bowyer junior, the learned printer of London. I am quoting of course from that invaluable work by M. Pollard on the Dublin book trade 1550 to 1800.1 How characteristic of Pollard to seize on a familiar detail, long regarded as a mere fact of person biography, and ask us to consider its wider significance, for these two friends were men of business important each in his own country, countries divided by not only the stormy Irish Sea. We shall do well to listen, for, as I have had occasion elsewhere to remark, Pollard’s work has a peculiar authority.2, Her sharp-eyed view from Dublin City of the book trade across the Irish Sea should be studied by all those accustomed to thinking of London as the natural centre of things. Nevertheless, in the case of Faulkner and Bowyer much of the evidence for Pollard’s statement has been lost, and some of what survives is difficult of interpretation, so that the full extent and precise nature of the long relationship between the two men remains far from clear. For instance, Robert E. Ward, in his edition of some of Faulkner’s letters, suggests that the two men first met ‘sometime between 1721 and 1724’.3 Faulkner recalls in a letter written late in life having long ago worked as a journeyman for the Bowyers. The letter as printed by John Nichols in his Literary anecdotes, gives the year as 1726.4 The original, in the University Library, Cambridge, shows this date to be a substitution, suggesting Faulkner’s uncertain memory for repeated visits made

during the twenties. Unfortunately, earlier letters between the two men, although known to have been written, have nearly all been lost. Ward once informed me that ‘Faulkner corresponded with Bowyer, but the available evidence of this occurs only in Faulkner’s letter to Bowyer for 1 October 1745’ (personal letter of 22 November 1969). This is another of the few surviving letters between the two men printed in the Literary” anecdotes. It is also the letter used by Pollard as evidence that Faulkner and Bowyer collaborated in the printing of twin editions of Swift’s Directions to servants of 1745. (See item 3314A in the extract from The Bowyer Ledgers, ‘Checklist of Printing, 17101. M. Pollard, Dublin’s trade in books 1550-1800: Lyell Lectures, 1986-7, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, p- 100. 2. Notes and queries, (June 1991), pp. 229-30.

3. Robert E. Ward, Prince of Dublin printers: the letters of George Faulkner, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1972, p. 6. 4. John Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, London 1812-16, iii. 108 n. A slightly revised version of the paper given at the Autumn Seminar of the Rare Books Group of the Library Association of Ireland on 4 October 1991 in Marsh’s Library, Dublin. The theme of the Seminar was Ireland and the European Book Trade before 1800. Originally published in Long Room, 38 (1993; in preparation at press time, paging unavailable). Copy-

right © 1993. Reprinted by permission of the Friends of the Library, Trinity College Dublin. 223

224 George Faulkner and Wilham Bowyer 1777 in the Appendix {to this article, p. 233 below}.) I am grateful to Pollard for supposing that Bowyer must have printed the London edition. I am sure that she is right, and accordingly was able to make a last-minute addition to the canon of Bowyer printing. Nevertheless, I want to stress that 1745 is the earliest date that Pollard could offer for collaboration between the two men. Today, however, I am happy to disclose new information which takes the story back to 1729. It comes from the edition of the Bowyer printing ledgers published earlier this year [1991] by the Bibliographical Society (of London) jointly with the Bibliographical Society of America, and also available from the Oxford University Press.* What can we expect to learn from further inquiry into the association of two leading members of the eighteenth-century book trade, the one active in Dublin, the other in London? We already know that they were close contemporaries: Bowyer was born in 1699, Faulkner probably in 1703 (though 1699 is also given); Faulkner died in 1775 and

Bowyer two years later. I must explain that by Bowyer I mean William Bowyer, the son, who entered his father’s business in 1722. However hospitable the elder Bowyer was to young Faulkner during the 1720s, I suspect that it was the son who took the initiative in opening business dealings with Faulkner. Biographical facts are always welcome, for there is no such thing, after all, as a mere fact. I would like to know exactly when Faulkner, as a mere journeyman, was invited by his employers to ‘dine, drink tea, and sup with them, which was not customary in those days, and perhaps not in London today, for all I know. Unfortunately, the Bowyer ledgers are silent on this affair. The workmen’s check book, which would have shown precisely what works were composed by Faulkner, over what period of time, and for what wages at piece rates, is available only for the 1730s. Of course, one should not forget that history is a tale of the doings of men and women, but interest is bibliographical, as well as biographical, and

in this respect I am better provided. | am able to show that between 1729 and 1767 Bowyer printed some three score editions of Irish origin—part of the evidence 1s given in the Appendix {pp. 231-33 below}. ‘These were chiefly works by Jonathan Swift, George

Berkeley, and Robert Clayton. Bibliography however is not just about books, but about the activities and relationships of the people who wrote, printed, distributed, bought and sold, read, or banned them. I can also reveal that many of these pieces reached Bowyer courtesy of his friend Faulkner. In respect of some of them the two men are further discovered to have been in partnership. It may consequently be hoped that this brief study of the relation between Faulkner and Bowyer as revealed in the Bowyer ledgers will lead in its own way to a fuller and more precise understanding of connections between the Dublin and London book trades during the eighteenth century.

Pollard has shown the inadequacy of all simple views of this large topic. How prejudiced and partial, for instance, the traditional denunciations of eighteenth-century Dublin printers as piratical villains, uttered by angry English authors. If Samuel 5. Keith Maslen and John Lancaster, The Bowyer ledgers: the printing accounts of Wiliam Bowyer father and son reproduced on microfiche, with a Checklist of Bowyer printing 1699-1777, a Commentary, Indexes, and

Appendixes, London: The Bibliographical Society, New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1991. Items in the Checklist, unless supplied in full in the appendix to this paper {pp. 231-33 below}, are referred to by their Checklist numbers.

The London Connection 225 Richardson, as author and printer, was justifiably annoyed by his failure to profit from

the proliferation of Dublin editions of his novels, how far should we let his complaints—as in The case of Samuel Richardson, of London, printer; with regard to the invasion of Ms property in the FA1story of Sir Charles Grandison, before publication, by certain booksellers in Dublin, London, Sept. 14, 1753—colour our attitude to the propriety of the

Dublin reprint trade? To run to the other extreme and inveigh against ruthless domination by the London trade will likewise no longer do. Pollard has corrected and developed our historical understanding by explaining with admirable clarity and force that because the English Copyright Act of 1709 did not extend to Ireland, at least not until after the Act of Union of 1800, Irish booksellers were meanwhile able to thrive by producing for the local market legitimate and cheap reprints of works originally published in London. The London booksellers, accustomed in the previous century to a captive market in Ireland, naturally resented such Irish initiatives. There was not much they could do about it, except to prevent Irish books from competing on the English market, although, as Pollard shows, they seem to have been quite successful at this. However, London booksellers and printers could with equal legitimacy, indulge in the reverse process. They could reprint without payment to author or publisher works originally published in Ireland. ‘The mechanism was simple, and depended on the trade alone. The first member of the trade to receive a copy from across the Irish Sea could usually print and publish it, unchallenged by his fellows. Clearly, although there was undoubtedly an element of competition in all this, some kind of collaboration was also involved, the exact nature of which can only be determined by inquiry into the circumstances of each case.

Pollard, though concentrating on the Irish side of the question, does notice this reverse traffic, but mainly for the 1750s, with reference to Robert Clayton.® She cites a letter of 10 April 1753 from George Faulkner in Dublin to his old friend William Bow-

yer, which helpfully demonstrates how the two men worked together, each sending works which the other might wish to reprint on his own account: ‘I have now two [ pieces] in my House which I will send you from the Press, to publish immediately after me. Your sending of pamphlets, etc. to me, are [sc] extreamly useful; altho’ I reprint

very few of them, I have an opportunity of obliging many friends’.? (By friends Faulkner means private gentlemen, such as Clayton, to whom the individual copy might be passed on.) Similarly, in 1767 Faulkner sends Bowyer 4 Uist of the absentees of Ireland, expressing the wish that it ‘may answer with you. | should have sent it sooner had it been in my power, which it was not, the author having employed five different printing-offices to print it: and, as he hath given the property to me, I transfer it to you. I wish what you receive may be the first, as I cannot answer for my English journeymen and shopkeepers, who may have their friends in London. Many people of Ireland, as well as of England, may have a curiosity to see this list; and therefore, I hope, it will at least quit your cost, and, I sincerely wish, afford some profit, which, if in my power, I 6. Pollard, op. cit., pp. 105 ff. 7. Pollard, op. cit., p. 100; also Ward, op. cit., pp. 41-42.

22.6 George Faulkner and William Bowyer would heap on you’. No one could say that Faulkner was not at least as obliging as Bowyer.? However, I have been unable to find any London edition of the List for this date. It is not entered in the Bowyer ledgers, and I suppose that Bowyer chose not to reprint. Further inquiry into Faulkner’s role in this ‘exchange of copyright’ (as Pollard calls it) may well be left to those best placed for it. My concern, predictably, is with Bowyer, whose printing accounts (together with those of his father) I have spent so many years in editing. What part did the younger Bowyer, working in London, play in this reprint

trade between Dublin and London? I began by consulting the entry under Dublin in the Topical Index to The Bowyer Ledgers. Here were references to 57 items printed between 1716 and 1763, 53 of them bearing the imprint “Dublin printed: London reprinted’, and 4 acknowledging a Dublin connection either in the imprint or elsewhere on the title-page. ‘The series begins effectively in 1729, there being only one prior item, that printed in 1716. John Lancaster kindly produced a printout of the 57, plus a few more items with a Faulkner or at least a Dublin connection, from the main Checklist of works printed by the Bowyers 1710-1777. This printout has formed the basis of my investigation. (Copies were made available at the Seminar.) A selection, chiefly of items relevant to Faulkner for the years 1729-33, is reproduced {on pp. 231-33 below}.

On only three occasions is a Dublin printer or bookseller named in the imprint; only once is this Faulkner, and then only as seller. (This is Checklist 4682, entered October 1767: James Parsons, Remains of Japhet: being historical enquiries into the affinity and origin of the European languages, London, printed for author: and sold by L. Davis

and C. Reymers, J. Whiston, B. White, and G. Faulkner, at Dublin, 1767; Nichols notes in his Literary anecdotes that this was the last publication of an old friend of Bowyer). We already know from Faulkner’s correspondence of his involvement with item 3314A, Swift’s Directions to servants of 1745—see the Appendix {p. 233 below}. How many more of these works Faulkner may have had some connection or other with must be discovered by other means. Bowyer is rather more visible. Imprints name him as the undertaker on 8 occasions, and once he is identified as printer, but by his initials alone. These g items are works by Robert Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, who is reliably reported to have given Bowyer the copyright of his works.!° Yet Bowyer owned all or part of the copyright in at least 43 of these instances.

What do the Bowyer ledgers themselves have to say? I start with item 1471, the printing of which was charged, and therefore completed, by 30 October 1729—s ee the Appendix {p. 231 below}. ‘This is the London reprint of The Hibernian patriot, originally printed in book form in 1725, with imprint ‘Dublin: re-printed and sold by George Faulkner’. The imprint referring to the fictitious ‘A. Moor’ and all ‘the booksellers of London and Westminster’ hides more than it says. The truth of the matter, or part of it, appears in the ledger entries, where the work is charged to Woodward, Davis, and Bowyer himself. These are the people who stood to make a profit as undertakers of the 8. Nichols, op. cit., ili. 208-9 n. g. Pollard, op. cit., p. 100 mentions this generous act by Faulkner. 10. Nichols, op. cit., 11. 231, 244 n., cited under Checklist 3715, Clayton’s Essay on spirit, 1751.

Lhe London Connection 227 edition. The Bowyer paper stock ledger (which can be consulted in the microfiche facsimile accompanying the book of apparatus) shows that the first batch of copies, totalling 52, was sent to Faulkner. What was his part in this venture? Certainly, he took a substantial number of copies to sell, although on what terms is not revealed. We may suspect that he had helped Bowyer to this ‘copy’. And did Bowyer, needing outlets for this quite substantial octavo of 17 sheets (272 pages) other than the usual distributors of pamphlets, then call in the major booksellers Thomas Woodward and Charles Davis? One can only speculate. Three items under 1730 disclose Faulkner’s close involvement—see 1545, 1547, 1576 in the Appendix {p. 231 below}. The first two London editions of 4 vindication of his excellency the lord C—t, from the charge of favouring none but Tories, High-Churchmen and Jacobites (1545 and 1576), carry the imprint ‘London: printed for T. Warner’. ‘The corre-

sponding Dublin edition of the Vindication, although carrying the imprint ‘London printed and Dublin re-printed’, was evidently first printed by Faulkner.1!_ The third item (1547) is Select poems from Ireland ... Part II, with imprint ‘Printed at Dublin: London, reprinted and sold by T. Warner’. In this case the imprint may be taken almost at

face value. ESTC records a Dublin edition of the second poem of the selection stated only to have been ‘Printed in the year 1730’. Whether this was Faulkner’s printing or not I do not know. Thomas Warner for his part seems to have been active between 1729 and 1732 merely as a seller, a distributor. However, all three of these Bowyer printings are entered in the customer accounts, not to Warner, but to “Faulkner & WB’. Faulkner, as printer of a Dublin edition of at least one of these works, would have stood to gain from sales in both London and Dublin. How enterprising of them both! Faulkner continues to be mentioned in the Bowyer ledgers, but not in such daring liaisons. The Index of Names and Titles to The Bowyer Ledgers, under Faulkner, confirms unexcitingly that Bowyer continued to have minor dealings with Faulkner until 1767. Scattered entries, mostly in the paper stock ledger, record the occasional dispatch to Faulkner of a copy or two, perhaps as a gesture of friendship, perhaps to order, as, for instance, three copies of Samuel Pegge’s Essay on the coins of Cunobelin, 1766 (Checklist 4582).

So far we have gathered hard evidence of Faulkner’s connection with only 6 out of the nearly three score Bowyer items under consideration. The ledgers reveal principally what it is their function to record. The much greater extent of Faulkner’s involvement is suggested by the discovery chiefly from the Eighteenth century short title catalogue that Dublin editions printed by Faulkner lie behind at least 24 of Bowyer’s Dublin printed: London reprinted editions. (For the record, these include Checklist numbers 1471, 1737, 1775, 1813, 1816, 1910, 3163, 3236, 3303, 3314A, 3419, 3545, 3715, 3771, 3778, 3821, 3823, 3866,

4140, 4141, 4189, 4203, 4426, and 4682.) Add the three London printed editions (1545, 1547, 1576), which the ledgers show Faulkner to have had a share of, and you can see that Bowyer was certainly or probably indebted to his Dublin friend for a steady supply of mostly little pieces from which Bowyer might derive a double profit, from printing and 1. Jonathan Swift, Irish tracts 1728-1733, | Works, v. XII], ed. Herbert Davis, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955» P- 337:

228 George Faulkner and Wiliam Bowyer from selling. By comparison, Margaret Rhames’s Dublin printing of Bishop Berkeley’s Siris, that remarkable excursus on the medicinal virtues of tar-water, which became a runaway success in London, spawned 13 editions by Bowyer; four other Dublin printers: Samuel Fairbrother, Samuel Harding, James Hoey, and R. Owen are each represented by a single item. The attraction to Bowyer of such things is that they were his. Without in any way showing off his acquisitions, the younger Bowyer was able, largely

thanks to Faulkner, to begin to build up a list of copyrights that eventually became quite considerable. Faulkner was doing something similar in Dublin, but this has yet to be uncovered, a task not to be lightly undertaken! Was this one of the topics discussed by the young men on the occasion of Faulkner’s early visits to London, or were the two men rather responding to opportunities offered by Faulkner’s closer connection with Swift in the late 1720s and early 1730s? The importance of Swift to them both cannot be over-emphasised. A glance at the Appendix {pp. 231-33 below} will show the preponderance of works by Swift printed between 1729 and 1732. However, in 1732 came a quite unexpected turn of events. On 22 July, Swift was induced to assign the copyright of 18 of his smaller pieces to Bowyer. The document, available in Harold Williams’ edition of Swift’s Correspondence, is worth quoting, and not only for its linking of Faulkner and Bowyer: Whereas severall scattered Papers in prose and verse for three or four years last past, were printed in Dublin by Mr George Faulkner, some of which were sent in Manuscript to Mr William Bowyer of London, Printer, which pieces are supposed to be written by me, and are now by the means of the Reverend Mathew Pilkington who delivered or sent them to the said Faulkner and Bowyer, become the Property of the s* Faulkner and Bowyer, I do here without specifying the

said Papers, give up all manner of right I may be thought to have in the said Papers, to Mr Mathew Pilkington aforesaid, who informs me that he intends to give up the said right to Mr Bowyer aforesaid... .1?

Pilkington no doubt owed Bowyer a favour for having printed his Poems on several occasions, London: printed for T. Woodward, Charles Davis, W. Bowyer, 1731. Faulkners connection with these Poems is revealed by the Bowyer paper stock ledger, which records (on Proo6) that on 29 April 1731 Bowyer ‘sent to Ireland to Mr Falkner 94’ copies in sheets plus one bound (Checklist 1647). These individual pieces were subsequently specified by Pilkington in a letter to Bowyer of 28 August 1732, also quoted by Williams. These include half a dozen items already printed by Bowyer, although no less striking is the larger number he had not printed. Given the state of the copyright law, Bowyer would not have needed such express permission simply to reprint a Dublin edition. What was going on? Only that Alexander Pope, the most powerful author of his day, was intending to include some of these pieces in his forthcoming ‘third volume’, actually the fourth, of Miscellanies, published in October 1732 (item 276 in R. H. Griffith, Alexander Pope, a bibliography, 1922). Pilkington, with Swift’s concurrence, and in the face of Pope's protests, was cheekily preparing a rival volume to be printed by 12. Vol. V, appendix 22, p. 255 n., {quoted from the 1972 revised printing of vols. IV-V (see the ‘Note to the corrected impression (1972) byDavid Woolley, on pp. xix-xxi of vol. IV)}.

The London Connection 229 Bowyer. Swift’s assignment was a necessary step on the way. From what is known of

the tangled negotiations, Bowyer for his part politely insisted on his rights, and Pope grudgingly made some concessions. Nevertheless, it was Pilkington’s project that failed, and Bowyer, for whatever reason, seems to have made no further use of his rights. Although Swift himself published little after 1732, the trade in Swift copyrights grew apace. [he volumes of Miscellanies continued to come out during the 1730s and 17408; the Works, initiated in 1735 by Faulkner and then amounting to 4 volumes, had extended by 1775 to almost 20 volumes. Teerink, the bibliographer of Swift, saw in all this ‘a keen rivalry between Faulkner and the London publishers of Swift's Works’ adding that ‘in this bloodless strife, Faulkner had for a long time the advantage on his side, he constantly adding, his rivals being frequently obliged to derive from him’.1% Bowyer, as his ledgers show, made good use of his ownership of certain pieces of Swift. They gave him an entitlement to a share of the profits of each succeeding, and enlarged edition, and also the right to perform part of the printing. This process culminated for Bowyer in 1775, with Volume XVII of the Works, in octavo, London: printed by Bowyer and Nichols for W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, (and others), which was edited by Nichols, Bowyer’s partner (Checklist 5074). It was while preparing this volume for the press that Nichols elicited Faulkner’s letter spiced with ancient memories, from which | quoted earlier. The letter begins as follows: “Dear Sir, Had I any original Works whatever of Dr. Swift's, worth publication, that could be of honour to his memory, and any profit to you, I should be glad to send them; but I have not.’ He goes on: ‘I ... shall be obliged to you, on your kind offer, to send me the sheets of the Edition you are now printing.’ Here, more than forty years after their collaboration of the late 1720s and early 1730s that we have witnessed in the Bowyer ledgers, these eminent printers of Dublin and of London are still attentive to each other’s needs. Rivalry there might have been, but what we have seen looks like friendship. Insofar as the Dublin and London book trades were independent and parallel systems, commerce between them might thrive as well by collaboration as by competition. The Bowyer ledgers contain other references to Faulkner of a quite different and

indeed surprising nature, bearing on Faulkner's management of his own printinghouse. The first of the two customer account ledgers (ledger A) devotes most of an opening to an account for ‘Mr. George Falkner of Dublin’ (A340-1). Some entries, for 1736 and 1737, are of a more personal nature, and seem to show Bowyer acting briefly as a London banker’s agent for members of Faulkner’s family. For instance, on 19 August 1736 Bowyer pays out 6 pounds 11 shillings to Mrs Faulkner, having already on 22 July received that sum from Mrs Barbara Hickes. Again, in 1737 Bowyer buys 4 lottery

tickets for Mr Faulkner, for a total of 16 pounds 18 shillings, and is paid by ‘Mrs Falkner’s brother’. Such details no doubt have their biographical significance. However, 1 am much more interested in the first entry in this account, and in several other 13. H. Teerink, 4 dibliography of the writings of Jonathan Swift, D. D., 1937, revised A. H. Scouten, Philadelphia 1963, p. 24.

230 George Faulkner and William Bowyer closely related entries. They are as follows (the square brackets are editorial; zero is normalised throughout the money columns):

[£ s. a. £ os. al [1732]

By Letter sold, 7044 of Pica & Long Primer at 4d per £ 25 7 8 Nov2_ pd Samll Bell his bill for shipping the Otter °o 19 oO

pd Cartage to Custom house o 2 6 I I 6 [1735]

Novr 10 to 773 pounds of Long Primer Letter at rod 32 4 2

To 92 % li Brevere at 5d 1 18 6 1737

For Carriage and wharf. to Capt. Bell & Porter & Box Oo 5 O 2 3 6

Where do these odd but considerable quantities of type come from? Was Bowyer perhaps acting for once as a printer’s broker? Not so! The clue comes from an entry in ledger C, the account of work done and wages claimed at piece rates by compositors and pressmen. Bowyer’s apprentices too were required to account for their doings, because their time belonged to their master. For the period ending 8 November 1735 it is noted that the apprentice ‘James [i.e. James Emonson] clear’d the Long Primr for Mr Faulkner’, cleared it, presumably, from Bowyer’s own type cases. It is well known that during the late 1720s and early 1730s Bowyer was purchasing fonts of the new Caslon types. These ledger entries show that Bowyer was passing on considerable amounts of his old type to the Dublin printer.14 It may be supposed that Faulkner used this type in

his own printing-house, but this would be hard to detect. I have, however, found discarded Bowyer ornaments in books printed by Faulkner from 1732. For instance, Bowyer ornaments 29, 32, 42, 58, 121, 122, 124, and 183 (as illustrated in my Bowyer ornament stock of 1973), are used in the 4 volume Works of J. 8., D. D., D. S. P. D., Dublin: printed by and for George Faulkner, 1735. Pollard has reminded us that ‘type was by far the most expensive item in a printer's equipment’; she also argues that Dublin printers were forced to cut their costs if they were to sell their local products at a discount compared to the imported and sought after London editions. It looks as if we have discovered one way Faulkner managed to do it! Were other Dublin printers engaged in similar practices? In presenting for inspection these fragments of new material ] am aware that these comprise pieces of more than one puzzle; also that I have not been able to fit them all exactly into place. Still, I hope some progress has been made, and that I have stimulated, or provoked you, to carry on the search.

14. The higher price per pound charged in 1735 may indicate that this lot was of better quality. ‘The entry for 1732 is puzzling, for 704 pounds of pica would have cost only 411.145.8d. I suppose that the quantity of long primer sold was inadvertently omitted; 819 pounds would make up the sum required. 15. Pollard, op. cit., p. 120.

The London Connection 231 APPENDIX

From the ‘Checklist of Bowyer printing, 1710-1777 1n The Bowyer Ledgers, London and New York, 1991. 1446 (17 May 29) Swift, Jonathan, and others. The 1503 (16 Feb 30, & see 30 Apr 30) Swift, Jonathan, intelligencer. Printed at Dublin. London reprint- and others. Select poems from Ireland: being I. a ed and sold by A. Moor, and the booksellers of satyr in imitation of Persius [&c]. Printed at Dub-

London and Westminster. 1729. lin: London, reprinted and sold by T. Warner. 8°. Al-3 B-O8 P* QI. [L:P.P.6177; 0:8°.B.441. 1730.

Linc.] 8°. Al B-E* (-EF4). [0:12.0.1205] LEDGER A25, 226-7; P1006. WB & Davis/Davis LEDGER A26, 117; P891, 1006. Woodward, Da& Austen, 14 shts, 1000 Gen. demy, dd 19 May vis & WB, 2 shts in half-shts, 500 Holl. demy, dd

29. 16 Feb 30. A117: 2 Feb 30.

Notes Nichols. Teerink 34. NoTES Nichols: Part I, 1729, 1730 [in error for 1471 (30 Oct 29) Swift, Jonathan. The Hibernian pa-

Part II]. Teerink 685.

triot: being a collection of the Drapier’s letters ... 1545 (24 Apr 30) [Swift, Jonathan] A vindication of

To which are added, poems and songs. Printed at his excellency the lord C—t, from the charge of Dublin, London: reprinted and sold by A. Moor, favouring none but Tories, High-Churchmen and and the booksellers of London and Westminster. Jacobites. For T. Warner. 1730.

1730. 8°. A? B-D* EB”. [0:G.P.20(9)]

o A’ 4 8B-R'S". o4 . [O:Hope 962] LEDGER A26, 117; P1006; C1412-3. Faulkner & 8°. LEDGER A25, 226-7; P890. Woodward, Dav. & WB, Vindication of Ld. Carteret, 2 shts in halfWB, Drapier’s Letters, 17 shts, 750 demy, dd 30 shts, 750 Holl. demy.

Oct 29. notes Nichols. London Evening Post, 12-14 May. NoTES Nichols: 1729. Teerink 22: 21 Al-3. Teerink 697.

1478 (30 Nov 29, & see 24 Jan 30) The tribune. Print- 1547 (30 Apr 30, & see 16 Feb 30) Swift, Jonathan,

ed at Dublin: London reprinted, and sold by T. and others. Select poems from Ireland ... Part II.

Warner. 1729. Printed at Dublin: London, reprinted and sold by

oO 42 .

8°. A? B-L* M2, [L:1418.h.33; O:Hope 8°. 1005] T. Warner. 1730. LEDGER A25, 130; P890-1. Woodward, Davis & 8°. AI B-D'E”. [0:12.6.1205]

WB, 5% shts, 750, dd 28 Sep 29. LEDGER A26, 117; P1006; C1413-4. Faulkner &

notes Nichols: 1730. WB, Select poems part 2, 2 shts, 500.

notes Nichols: Part I [sic]. Teerink 694: 2? [=A’],

1479 (20 Dec 29) A report from the committee ap- in National Library of Ireland; ESTC also records pointed to enquire into the state of the goals [sic] preliminary leaf of advertisements in US copies. of the kingdom of Ireland: relating to Newgate and the Sheriffs Marshalsea. Dublin: Printed by 1576 (25 Jul 30) Swift, Jonathan. A vindication of his

Warner. 1729 er. 1730.

Samuel Fairbrother; London: reprinted for T. excellency the Lord C—t. 2nd edn. For T. Warn-

2°. A* B-C’. [O:Pamph.387(18)] [US:InU (not seen)] LEDGER A25, 130; P891. Woodward, Davis, WB, LEDGER A27, 117; C1417-8. Faulkner & WB,

3 shts, 1000, dd 20 Dec 29. Vindications, 2nd edn, 2 shts, 500. notes Nichols: 1730. 1729 (30 Nov 31, & see 20 Dec 31) [Swift, Jonathan]

1491 (24 Jan 30, & see 30 Nov 29) The tribune. Part A proposal humbly offer ‘d to the P—t, for the II. Printed at Dublin. London: reprinted, and sold more effectual preventing the further growth of

5 4 ° Roberts. 1731.

by T. Warner. 1729. Popery. Dublin printed. London, re-printed for J. 8°. nm N-Z". (L:1418.h.33; O:Hope 8°. 1005]

LEDGER A25, 130; P890-1, 958. Woodward, Da-

8°. A* B-D*. [L:700.g.65; O:G.P.371(2)]

vis & WB, 54 shts, 750. LEDGER A29, 148-9; C1440-1. Coggan & Worrall, 2 shts, 500. NoTES Nichols: 1730. Parts 1-2 paged and signed consecutively. Edited by Patrick Delany. Notes Teerink 37.

232 George Faulkner and Wilham Bowyer 1734 (20 Dec 31, & see 30 Nov 31) [Swift, Jonathan] 8°. A-D*. [O:Vet.A4.d.14(2)] A proposal humbly offer’d to the P—t, for the LEDGER P940. Dd 2 R demy to Mr Purser for ‘Admore effectual preventing the further growth of vantages of rep. ye Sacr. Test’ [i.e. 500].

Popery. 2nd edn. Dublin printed. London, re-

printed for J. Roberts. 1732. NoTES The whole evidently printed by Purser.

8°. A-D*. [0:Vet.Ad.e.828(4)| Teerink 724. Cf. next entry. °, A-D*. [O:Vet.A4.e. LEDGER A29, 148-9; C1442. Coggan & Worrall, 1776 (25 Feb 32) Abernethy, John. The nature and

9 shts 500/750 [in C], 2nd edn consequences of the Sacramental Test consid-

ered. With reasons humbly offered for the repeal

noTES Sheet D is from the same setting as the first of it. Dublin printed: London, re-printed for J.

edition in the copies seen. Teerink 37A. Roberts. 1732.

1735 (21 Dec 31, & see 22 Jan 32) Schemes from Ire- 8°. A-K*. [L:116.d.60; Oe:P654(1)] land, for the benefit of the body natural, ecclesi- LEDGER A30: P940: C1444-5: $1639. Woodward

ashe ana printed: rinted foroeJ. sree Roberts. , London, re- & Davis, 5 shts, 750 demy, dd [Apr?] 1732.

oe AD‘ 7 (0:GP 78512) NOTES Cf. previous entry.

ae Roberts. 1732. NOTES Teerink 958. tw

LEDGER A29: P940: C1442: S1639. Partners, 2 1813 (26 Apr 32) The progress of beauty. A poem.

shts. 750 Dublin, printed. London, reprinted and sold by J. 4°. A-D" E’. [0:G.P.1696(1)]

1737 (after 21 Dec 31) Darcy, James. Love and ambi- LEDGER A30; P940; C1449-50; $1639. WB & tion. A tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal partners, 4% shts, 500 demy.

in Dublin. Dublin, printed; London, reprinted for

J. Roberts. 1732. NOTES Foxon D10 attributes to James Dalacourt. 8°. A*a* B-I’. [0:108.e.131(3)] 1816 (3 May 32) Boeoticorum liber: or a new art of LEDGER A29: P940: C1442-3: $1639. Partners, poetry ... in two canto’s. Dublin, printed: Lon-

22 Dec 31, recd 10 R demy, 5 shts, 750 don, reprinted and sold by J. Roberts. 1732. 4°, A-B* C’. [L:11630.d.15(7); O:Vet.A4.d.81

1751 (22 Jan 32, & see 21 Dec 31) Schemes from Ire- (5)] land. 2nd edn. Dublin printed: London, re-print-

oi foc} Roberts. 1732 P LEDGER A30; P940; C1449-50; $1639. WB &

; a oo partners, Irish pamphlets/Boeoticorum liber, 2'%

8°. A-D*. [US:MHi:Box 1732] shts, 750 demy.

LEDGER A30; P940; C1443-4; $1639. Partners, notes Nichols. Foxon B311. Scheme to pay ye National Debt, 2 shts, 500 demy.

NoTES A new setting. Bowyer ornaments 53 and 1900 (26 Jan 33) The humble remonstrance of the

187S2 on A2. Cf. Teerink 958 five-foot-highians, against the antichristian prac-

oT , tice of using a standard in enlisting of soldiers....

1753 (24 Jan 32) Articles of Limerick. To which is added, the wounds o’ th’ Kirk of LEDGER A30; C1443-4. Reilly, 2 shts, 200 + 24.0’ aanStrowan. 7 i a Row), neDublin, = aeered . ames Kow [i.e. Row], rick Dublin pein i i731 L507 138) of Lim- printed, London, re-printed for J. Roberts. 1733.

) ) 8°. A-D*. [O:Douce MM.598(7); O:G.P.393

1772 (19 Feb 32) Story of a cock & a bull. (3)]

LEDGER A30, 148; C1444-5. Cogan, 1% shts, pica LEDGER A32; P940; C1464-5. WB & partners,

8°, 750. High foot highans [sic], 2 shts, 500.

NoTes Cf. MChron Feb. 1732: A t—d is as good - NOTES Nichols. Grub-street journal 3 Feb. for a sow as a pancake, or the story of a cock and

a bull, Dublin printed, London reprinted, for J. 1910 (20 Feb 33) [Lawson, John] The upper gallery.

Roberts. | A poem. Dublin, printed. London, reprinted, and sold by J. Roberts. 1733.

1775 (24 Feb 32, & see 25 Feb 32) Swift, Jonathan. 4°. B-C*. [O:Vet.A4.d.213]

The advantages proposed by repealing the Sacra- .

mental Test, impartially considered.... To which LEDGER A32; C1466; $1639. WB & partners, 2

is added Remarks on a pamphlet intitled, The na- shts, 750. ture and consequence of the Sacramental Test Notes Nichols. Grub-street journal 21 Feb. considered [by John Abernethy]. Dublin, print- Foxon L75. ed; London, re-printed for J. Roberts. 1732.

The London Connection 233 3314A ((Nov?] 1745) Swift, Jonathan. Directions to printer of the Dublin edition, asking Bowyer to servants. For R. Dodsley, M. Cooper. 1745. write him a preface; Herbert Davis in his edition 8° 1] A-F8 (-F8). [Austr: VMoU:*SW820.5 S977 (Blackwell, 1959) doubts that Bowyer complied,

A6/Di.d] and cites Faulkner to Bowyer, 1 October 1745: J ‘Fix your day of publication ... that we may both

NOTES Bowyer ornament 179 on F7’; apparently come out the same day. I think the middle of Noone printer throughout. Presumably an entry was vember will do very well’ (p. x). Austr: VMoU lost from ledger B as a result of the fire of 1808. copy reported by Richard Overell and Brian Mc-

Nichols 11 177 and 1770 quotes from a letter of 8 Mullin. Teerink 785. November 1745 written by George Faulkner,

BLANK PAGE |

A Supplement to The Bowyer Ornament Stock HIS Supplement makes two corrections and reports twenty additions to my 1973

) publication.t The experience of the last twenty years spent in completing and

revising for publication the Maslen-Lancaster edition of the Bowyer ledgers has confirmed the soundness and thoroughness of the original study. Of the twenty ornaments newly reported, the majority were found in works printed either early in the career of the elder Bowyer, prior to the period covered by the ledgers, or in the last year of his son’s life, when John Nichols, the junior partner, was in effective control of the business. ‘These works are listed in The Bowyer Ledgers, either in the main Checklist or in Appendix 4, “Works printed by William Bowyer senior 1699-1709’. The total number of early works, no more than thirty of which were found by John Nichols and recorded in his Literary anecdotes, has now reached one hundred sixty. No doubt more will be identified, and perhaps a few more Bowyer ornaments added to the list. Most of the early ornaments are found in one work. This is Sir Edward Walker, Fiistorical discourses, upon several occasions: u1z. I. The happy progress and success of the arms

of K. Charles I. of ever blessed memory, from the 30th of March, to the 23d of November, 1644.... Together with perfect coptes of all the votes ... 1648, W.B. for Sam. Keble, 1705. In this book, listed in Appendix 4 of The Bowyer Ledgers, D66, appear seven Bowyer ornaments (189Az2, 189R, 242, 243, 244, 2451, 2452), used ten times (on ar’, B2’, R3', _X3’, 2Er,

2G2', 2P2', 253’, 3A1', 3B3"). The elder Bowyer is not known to have used ornaments before 1705. Why the sudden influx? Was it perhaps to give this folio a grander or more antique air, and was this the editor’s, Hugh Clopton’s, or the printer's idea? The initial W calls for particular notice. This seems to exist in two very similar forms, one (245!) appearing on B2’, the other (2452) appearing on 2 Er’ and 2583". Differ-

ences between the images—and I have examined three copies (Bodley I.2.7.Jur.; Cambridge University Library R.1.33; and University of Otago Library Ec 1705 W)—seem not the effect of variations in inking, but to show two distinctive histories of wear. I

suppose that Bowyer found and used two old and virtually duplicate initial blocks (whether cut or perhaps cast I cannot guess), but why two when one would have served? The half dozen late ornaments now reported all come from one work: the PAi/osophical transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. LXVIU, Part I, 1777, ‘printed by W. Bowyer

and J. Nichols’. (Vol. LXVII, Part II, 1778, names the printer ‘J. Nichols, successor to Mr. Bowyer’.) Nichols continued to use some old Bowyer ornaments—see The Bowyer ornament stock, p. 7. He also added some of his own: a sprinkling of old and new, including 248 and 251, is used in John Bacon’s Lider regis, vel thesaurus rerum ecclesiasticarum, ‘London, printed for the author by John Nichols’, 1786. The two corrections concern ornaments 111 and 112, each recorded in 1973 in only a

single use. Both must be considered very doubtful and should be deleted. The source of the problem in the case of 111 was a failure to recognise which five sheets of the third 1. K. I. D. Maslen, The Bowyer Ornament Stock (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, Bodleian Library, 1973); no. 8 of the Society's Occasional Publications. 235

236 A Supplement to ‘The Bowyer Ornament Stock’ edition of John Brown’s An estimate, 1757, had been printed by Bowyer. Fora still not

conclusive answer see the notes to Checklist 4119. Much the same may be said of ornament 112, where the problem arises from the shared printing of the fourth edition of the Estimate—see the notes to Checklist 4121. Before the new ornaments are shown, some comments on the notion of an ornament stock, and on the related topics of borrowing and frequency of use, may be helpful.

The notion that the work of a particular printer may be identified by recognising ‘his’ ornaments rests on the assumption that such ornaments were kept for his use over a period of time. Belief in the integrity of a printer’s ornament stock lies behind all ornament studies of individual printers. ‘These include the following recent studies of eighteenth-century London printers: William M. Sale, Jr., Samuel Richardson: master printer, 1950; J. McLaverty, Pope’s printer, John Wright: a preliminary study, 1976; Richard Goulden, The ornament stock of Henry Woodfall 1719-1747, 1988; and J. C. Ross,

Charles Ackers’ ornament usage, 1990. Having tested this concept in the case of the Bowyers, I have turned my attention to Samuel Richardson, and am well advanced with a large extension to Sale. For an early report see ‘Samuel Richardson’s books’, Bzb/1ographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 12 (1988 |1990]), 85-89.

There are well-known difficulties in coping with the facts of ornament usage. The piecemeal acquisition and perhaps dispersal of parts of the stock, the existence of “imitations’ in the hands of other printers, the possibility, indeed at times the certain existence, of cast duplicates, all offer their challenges. Some ‘Bowyer’ ornaments appear, shortly after he had ceased to use them, in works printed in Dublin by George Faulkner. Fortunately there is a probable explanation. During the 1730s Bowyer is known to have dispatched quantities of his old types to his friend Faulkner, and it may be safely guessed that some ornaments were thrown in—see above, ‘George Faulkner and William Bowyer: the London connection’; see also The Bowyer ornament stock, p. 4. What causes most alarm, however, is the possibility of widespread borrowing, of type as well as ornaments. ‘It is ... important to bear in mind both the possibility of borrowed ornaments and the occurence [sic] of shared printing’ (Goulden, op. cit., p. vii). That some borrowing must have gone on our knowledge of human nature tells us. M. Pollard in ‘ “Borrowed twelve cuts”: a Cork printer lends and borrows’ (Long Room, 8 [1973], 19-28) cites evidence from the ‘Job Book’ of Henry Denmead which leads her to recommend ‘caution in using a printer’s ornament stock to identify unsigned work’ (p.19). Similarly, Richard Goulden, studying the ornament stock of Henry Woodfall the elder, remarks that “The biggest problem to tackle has been the extent of borrowings of Henry Woodfall the younger from his father’s ornament stock’ (Goulden, op. cit., p. vill). But was borrowing ever extensive enough to threaten our assumptions? Certainly borrowing by a son, or among small jobbing printers in remote provincial towns should not be deemed sufficient to raise a general alarm concerning the habits of printers in

eighteenth-century London, centre of British book production. The very limited amount of borrowing and lending of ornaments at the Bowyer Press 1s indicated by ‘the

A Supplement to ‘The Bowyer Ornament Stock’ 237 fact that after extensive search only five of them have been found in works from other printing-houses before the Bowyers had ceased to use them. Four of the five, the large headpieces nos. 6, 8, 9, and 18, may have been borrowed from the Bowyers on account of their exceptional size’ (The Bowyer ornament stock, p. 3). The character and relative unimportance of what borrowing perhaps not seldom occurred may be suggested by an example from late in the century. John Nichols, successor to the younger Bowyer, kept a list of “Sorts lent to different Printers’ (the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols notebook, folio 6). There are 28 entries, extending over a period of five years 1798-1802, relating mostly to the loan to fourteen persons, mostly printers, of a few letters or words in exotic faces. For instance, Nichols notes the loan to ‘Mr Davis (I think) some Capital Letters of Gt. Primer black Caps’, and to ‘Mr. Strahan three Coptic words’. No ornaments are mentioned. It may however be argued that the loss of sorts would eventually cripple a font, while most ornaments could very easily be done without. This in its way is an argument against any widespread need to borrow.

My own inspection of several thousand works printed by the Bowyers, in the course of which I noted the serial number of each ornament used in each work, checked

against the record of the printers’ own accounts, argues for the existence of what | intentionally called the Bowyer ornament stock. The physical existence of this decorative material is vouched for, if in summary manner, in a priced inventory made by the younger Bowyer sometime in the 1740s or perhaps early 1750s: ‘[4]1 1o[s] o[d] Head Pieces, Tail-Pieces, Flowers and Facts’ fo. 38° of the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols notebook—see above, ‘An editorial impasse: the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols printers’ notebook’. The printer’s flowers would mainly have been those cast by Caslon within the previous ten or so years. The ornaments however were considerably older, dating back to the time of the elder Bowyer, and by the mid-century falling rapidly out of fashion. The son obviously did not set a great price on them. To give an idea of relative values, ‘Pica Coptic 200 lb’ (listed on the preceding notebook page) is priced at 45. Where there is no stock inventory (and related specimen, such as is shown for the late nineteenth century in my monograph Victorian typefaces in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1981), the existence of an ornament stock has to be inferred from the appearance of

inked impressions of particular ornaments in individual printed works. In order to emphasise this point, John Ross has cautiously entitled his study Charles Ackers’ ornament usage. he reasons he gives deserve attention. “Indeed, this study is concerned with “usage” rather than “stock”. In the case of Ackers, at least, the concept of “usage” is more appropriate, being more comprehensive and precise, than that of “stock”, which implies ownership or at least custody of ornament-blocks over a finite period. First, it allows for the possibility that ornaments observed in use once only may have been borrowed. Secondly, the dates of first and last observed use can be directly stated, whereas these may offer only a rough guide to the terminal dates between which an ornament was physically present in the stock. While the term “stock” will continue to be employed in some contexts, it remains true that direct evidence is available only for “usage”, and that the make-up of the “stock” is inferred from this, and may not wholly overlap with it’ (p. 3).

238 A Supplement to ‘The Bowyer Ornament Stock’ Ross properly distinguishes between the inked impression on paper and the physical wood (or wood and metal, or metal) block which made it. I doubt if there is much danger of confusion, however. We talk of type faces, being content to use language strictly descriptive of the physical stalk of type-metal with the letter projecting in relief

at one end, the top surface of which forms the face, although all the while we are observing the mark impressed on paper. Similarly, one readily thinks of ornaments in terms both of block (or ‘cut’) and inked impression. And in the end Ross comes round to the indispensable idea of a substantive stock inferred from the appearances, for how else are these to be known as Charles Ackers’ ornaments? If they are not to be so known, what can be their predictive value? Although I find no intellectual difficulty in working with the concept of an ornament stock, my study of Richardson’s ornaments is teaching me how much harder it is to proceed in the absence of supporting evidence from printer's records, such as I had for the Bowyers. I had of course already learned that ornament evidence must be derived from painstaking observation and supported by meticulous note-taking, and that photocopies (of the best quality only) have to be carefully checked agains the originals. In the case of Richardson, however, attribution of a particular ornament relies more than ever on the meticulous charting of its use in the printed works of the period; the more frequently it is observed, the more persuasive is the case. Richard Goulden also makes this point: ‘Bearing in mind, then, the spectres of alien ornaments, we must consider frequency of use as a possible guide to the authenticity of Woodfall’s ornaments’ (op. cit., p. ix). Ornament studies are invariably conservative in their recording of frequency. This is true of my own Bowyer ornament stock. Dr. Ross, describing his own practice, explains why: ‘one “use” of an ornament denotes its appearance within one “item’, irrespective of how many times it appears within that item’ (op. cit., pp. 3-4). Yet, to note the repeated appearances of an ornament, or better a group of ornaments, in page after page (and hence forme after forme), is to assemble the evidence essential for establish-

ing, for instance, whether one printer, or more than one, has been involved in the | printing of a particular work. Choosing almost at random from my shelf of Bowyer books, I find forty-two Bowyer ornaments used fifty-four times in fourteen of the fifteen sheets of Elijah Fenton’s Poems on several occasions, 1717 (Checklist 375). Initial W (Bowyer series 187) appears eight times, together with other ornaments recognised as Bowyer’s, on C7’, E3°, E4’, G4’, Ks’, Ms", Nr’, and Ns". ‘The evidence of fleurons and

types concur to suggest that only one printer was at work throughout. Ideally, therefore, the full record should be given; certainly it should be recorded in one’s working notes. Infrequency of use has its own significance, for ornaments observed seldom and in isolation from others have a much slighter predictive value. Of the twenty newly reported ornaments I now attribute to Bowyer, thirteen have been seen only once, and the verdict on one or two of these must be given as Not proven.

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