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2. London Printing[22]

Because of regulations requiring the inclusion in imprints of the printer's
name, we can identify most of the establishments responsible for producing
extant works from mid-Jacobean London. Twenty-nine individuals or organizations
appear in title pages during this period as having in some way
been responsible for physically printing books (some of these businesses
worked cooperatively and their data have been combined; see footnotes for
individual printers in table 4). The most striking observation coming from
the figures below is the wide discrepancy in the levels of business activity; the
top six offices were responsible for over half of the total output and the bottom
six responsible for only 8% (see table 4).

These figures indicate that the most productive printing houses operating
in London achieved a sustained high volume one of two ways: by acquiring
a privilege to print protected materials, as is the case of the King's Printer,
Adam Islip, and to a lesser degree John Legat (who through established connections
with Cambridge had cornered a valuable share of a steady market);
or by cultivating a network of active publishers who could be relied upon to
provide work sufficient to keep an office busy, as with the printers William
Stansby, Edward Griffin, Thomas Snodham, Felix Kingston, and Humphrey
Lownes. McKerrow, in his examination of Edward Allde's career, distinguished
between two types of printers, "according as they themselves published
and sold the bulk of the work they printed—the so-called printerpublisher,
or printed mainly or entirely for others—the so-called trade
printers."[23] He did not differentiate between those who mainly printed
privileged material and those who primarily commissioned new titles, but
his central distinction is still a useful one, especially if one compares output
levels with the place a printer falls on the printer-publisher/trade printer
continuum. Indeed, the data suggest a strong correlation between the ability
of a printer to solicit commissions from other publishers and the production
totals posted by that printer.[24] Excluding the King's Printer, Islip, and Legat
from the population, the five most productive houses (which are responsible
for half the output of this group) printed only 6% of their production for
themselves, while the remaining dozen identified houses printed over one-

Table 4. London printing by output and format, 1614-1618

                                             

	Edition sheets	Selfpublished	Edition sheets/ Edition	Proportion
Printing House				1°	2°	4°	8°	12°	16°	24°	32°	64°
King's Printing House[25]	6069	na	20.9	3%	41%	36%	15%	3%	1%	1%	—	—
Adam Islip	3751	na	85.3	—	71%	19%	9%	1%	—	—	—	—
Edward Griffin[26]	3706	6%	28.5	—	25%	57%	13%	4%	1%	—	—	—
William Stansby	3581	3%	35.5	—	63%	28%	7%	2%	—	—	—	—
Thomas Snodham	2241	10%	17.0	—	16%	54%	21%	8%	1%	—	—	—
John Legat	1982	na	42.2	—	58%	29%	10%	3%	—	—	—	—
Felix Kingston	1829	4%	19.5	—	25%	49%	17%	9%	—	—	—	—
Humphrey Lownes[27]	1798	9%	25.0	—	23%	41%	24%	12%	—	—	—	—
John Beale[28]	1672	28%	18.8	—	43%	29%	18%	8%	1%	—	—	1%
Nicholas Okes	1585	30%	14.2	—	23%	34%	31%	12%	—	—	—	—
Richard Field	1551	23%	28.7	—	24%	51%	17%	6%	2%	—	—	—
Unattributed Printing[29]	1374	na	7.5	2%	10%	33%	29%	19%	3%	2%	2%	—
Alsop/Creede[30]	1258	39%	15.0	—	1%	75%	22%	2%	—	—	—	—
William/Isaac Jaggard[31]	1227	83%	27.9	—	52%	38%	6%	4%	—	—	—	—
George Purslowe[32]	1066	32%	14.0	—	—	73%	13%	14%	—	—	—	—
George Eld	980	30%	10.4	1%	45%	36%	17%	1%	—	—	—	—
Thomas Purfoot	636	30%	18.2	1%	28%	39%	25%	7%	—	—	—	—
Edward Allde	622	19%	10.9	—	—	78%	20%	2%	—	—	—	—
Blower/Jones/Snowdon[33]	465	51%	8.5	3%	12%	64%	16%	5%	—	—	—	—
Thomas Dawson[34]	430	8%	25.3	—	61%	27%	9%	3%	—	—	—	—
John/William White[35]	253	17%	5.6	5%	—	77%	18%	—	—	—	—	—

third of their output for themselves. If we isolate the output and selfpublication
data (see figure 1), an inverse relationship between the two
emerges—as a printing house increases its publishing activities it tends to
decrease its overall emphasis on production work.

FIGURE 1. London printing, 1614-1618: Printing house output vs. % self-published.

A recent monograph on printing house activities during this period can
shed further light on some of the data listed in table 4. Yamada's 1994 study
of Thomas Creede's establishment contains output and subject distribution
analyses for the house's history up to Creede's death in 1617 (including the
materials produced in partnership with Bernard Alsop in 1616). My examination

of this business's output from 1614 through 1618 indicates that Creede
and then Alsop relied more heavily on projects from outside publishers than
on self-financed books; they printed roughly two sheets for themselves for
every three sheets they printed for other stationers. However, Yamada's
analysis allows us to view this house's practices from a long-term perspective.
From 1593 through 1602, Creede "printed twice as many books for himself
as for others. In other words, he was a printer-bookseller" (McKerrow's
printer-publisher). For the next ten-year period of 1603-1612, nearly the
opposite was true. According to Yamada's figures, "the average ratio in this
period of the books for himself to those for others was about 3 to 5. This
reversed tendency remained unchanged until the end of his business. He
became a trade-printer."[36] Despite the shift in publishing strategy, the overall
productivity of the business didn't seem to have suffered; while the amount
of self-publishing dropped steadily from an average of 292 sheets per year in
1596-98 to an annual average of 74 during the three years immediately preceding
the arrival of Alsop, production rates declined much less, from 367
sheets per annum to a little over 250 (see figure 2).[37]

FIGURE 2. Yearly output for Creede and Alsop/Creede.

Before examining the much more diverse publishing segment of the London
book trade, I'd like to discuss briefly the printing side of the book trade,
beginning with one of the most important printers of his time. Born in Exeter,
William Stansby's twenty-six-year career as a master printer (1610-1636)
spans the core Jacobean-Caroline period, a time during which his output was
both prolific and catholic. When Stansby apprenticed with John Windet in

1589, most of the office's composition was done in pica type. Over the years
the printing house expanded its capacity by acquiring additional typographical
material (in 1589 and again in 1609 the establishment purchased large
amounts of english type, and around 1590 they acquired some of John
Wolfe's type and ornaments), so that by the time Stansby took over in 1610
he had quite a substantial amount of type at his disposal.[38] For example, in
the summer of 1616 he paused in the printing of the final quires of Ben
Jonson's Workes (STC 14751), leaving 18.5 formes of type standing idle while
he attended to other matters.[39] Allowing that amount of type to sit unused
would have seriously compromised many printing houses, but it had little
impact on Stansby's activities. This large collection of equipment gave him
the capacity to develop a business capable of concurrently printing both
large and small projects and the flexibility to tackle a wide range of books.
He also displayed an enormous amount of ambition. When Windet owned
the house his output averaged between 200 and 300 edition sheets per year.
Stansby doubled that amount within a year of succeeding to the mastership
and within five years nearly tripled it. Clearly the production rates of this
printing office were the result of industrial capacity married to individual
drive.

Stansby was responsible for roughly 9% of the total London output during
the period in question. That he could sustain production at this level
without the benefit of exclusive patents meant that, among other things, he
needed to develop relationships with the booksellers who served as publishers
at this time. The title pages of the slightly more than one hundred books he
printed from 1614 through 1618 bear the names of over thirty different booksellers,
and only 3% of his output was printed without the evident involvement
of another stationer. By contrast, Islip's title pages reveal only six
names (other than the Company of Stationers who managed the law patent)
on his handful of non-law publications, and only three of his title pages lack
publisher information. The Star Chamber decrees of 1586 and 1615 that restricted
the number of presses owned by individual printing houses in London
to either one or two (save the King's Printer, who was not subject to
these limits) were usually taken to apply only to the number of operating
presses. Nonetheless these decrees along with periodic Company raids and
crackdowns placed a tangible limit on the production capacity of each
office. For an ambitious businessman like Stansby (in the 1615 decree he was
allowed two presses), the only way to achieve his high levels of output was

by making maximum use of his equipment. A brief look at how he managed
his typographical resources under these circumstances, then, might provide
useful insights.

At the end of Windet's mastership, when the house was averaging less
than 300 edition sheets per annum and the generic mix tended toward smallformat
books of a religious nature, composition was roughly half black letter
and half roman, and "Pica was twice as commonly used as english . . . [with]
a significant use of long-primer, brevier and non pareil."[40] When Stansby
hit his stride in 1614-1618 and was averaging 700 sheets per annum, less than
10% of the composition was black letter, with over 50% of the work done in
english and only 42% in pica. He also tended toward publishing largeformat
books, with 62% of his output imposed as folio, 28% quarto, 7%
octavo and only 3% duodecimo.

Stansby seems to have made full use of his ample stocks of english type
for his extensive folio publication, supplementing it with pica only in two
instances—in 1614 when he was printing the 244-sheet Purchas his Pilgrimage
(STC 20506) and Walter Ralegh's 394-sheet History of the World (STC
20637), and again in 1617 when he printed an enlarged Purchas (294 sheets,
STC 20507) along with the second edition of the History (STC 20638).[41]
In both cases he chose to set Purchas in pica (he set Ralegh's History in
english), the only two times he employed that body for folio printing. When
setting quarto, though, the balance shifts to the other extreme: 80% of his
quarto output is in pica roman or black letter, with only 20% set in english.
What little small-format printing Stansby did was a smattering of brevier
and long and great primer. The rapid increase in production seems to have
forced a number of changes from the earlier practices of Windet's mastership,
including a focus on secular rather than religious publishing, "a shift
to larger sizes of type and increased emphasis on composition over presswork."[42]
Unlike that of most of his contemporaries, nearly all of Stansby's
work was the result of commissions from other stationers (discussed further
below), and he seems to have cultivated strong commercial relationships with
publishers who fed a growing market for works of literature and history.

Edward Griffin's career, while much shorter, resembles Stansby's in a
number of important ways.[43] Like Stansby he was not from London but
rather born in Denbigh, in northern Wales. After being freed in 1611 Griffin
worked as a journeyman in the establishment of his former master Arnold
Hatfield and succeeded to the business upon the latter's death the next year.
The printing house Griffin acquired is often referred to as the Eliot's Court

Press, a syndicate formed in 1584 from the printing materials of Henry Bynneman
and located in the Old Bailey. Hatfield was the last of the four founding
partners, and by the time he died Melchisidec Bradwood, who had joined
the partners in 1602, seems to have withdrawn completely to Eton. To help
with the firm, around 1613 Griffin may have contracted George Purslowe to
provide supplementary production, although the STC offers "It is not clear
whether [Purslowe] ever actually worked in the Old Bailey, or whether he
may have borrowed a few ornaments from the Eliot's Court Press, or only
contracted with the partners to share in printing some of their publications"
(3.139).

Upon assuming the Eliot's Court Press, Griffin seems to have hit the
ground running. He started off quite busy, averaging between 600 and 800
sheets a year during the first four years of his mastership, and he maintained
that level of production until his death in 1621. He also seems to have been
a fairly law-abiding colleague, was admitted to livery in 1616, and received
a one-half yeoman's share in the English Stock in 1618 and a full share the
next year. With the established printing business apparently came a long
list of client publishers; Griffin dealt with thirty-five different booksellers
during the year 1614-1618, especially Nathaniel Butter (1499 sheets), Ralph
Mab (500 sheets), William Bladen (226 sheets), and William Aspley (225
sheets). He printed many more titles of smaller size and format, with an
output totaling nearly 170 separate works of which three-quarters were
quarto format or smaller. Most of the publishers he dealt with had a preference
for divinity, and during this period they commissioned him to print
nearly 2700 edition sheets of religious titles, especially commentaries, works
of instruction, and collections of sermons. Both Stansby and Griffin relied
upon outside financing from prosperous stationers: Stansby maintained relations
with booksellers who favored secular works, and Griffin exploited his
connections with publishers specializing in religious texts.

Large establishments such as the King's Printer, Islip, Stansby, and Griffin
managed to attract the lion's share of the large-format and prestige printing,
yet there was still enough business in the London market to support midsized
outfits such as the one run by Thomas Snodham. Like Stansby and
Griffin, after Snodham was freed in 1602 he remained with, and ultimately
took over the business of, his former master Thomas East. He apparently
had no valuable patents, although he occasionally printed music as an
assignee of William Barley. During the last part of his career he served on
a committee of stock-keepers who oversaw the management of the English
Stock. In 1619 he also was asked by the Stationers' Company "to goe into
Ireland to take the account" of the Irish Stock. As recompense the Company
ordered that he "shall haue worke for 2 presses vntill his returne & that the
Company shall pay to his wife eu'ye saterday 4[pounds] if the worke amount
to so much."[44]

Snodham's output reflects the sorts of projects a mid-sized office could expect
to attract. A little more than half of his production consisted of the religious
material that was so popular at this time (about a quarter of this was
sermon publication). His work came from a number of different sources, with
the names of over thirty stationers appearing on the title pages of the books he
printed during this period and approximately 10% of his output produced
without an outside publisher. He may have worked for so many publishers
because the commissions they gave him were so small. Over the five-year
period of this study Snodham printed more than 130 separate titles with an
average of a little less than seventeen edition sheets per title, 25% smaller
than the average for the trade. As one might expect from such a collection
of smaller works, a majority (57%) of his work was in quarto, with roughly
18% in folio, 18% octavo, and 7% duodecimo. He also managed to keep a
fairly consistent rate of work in his house, with a solid schedule of smaller
quarto and octavo jobs punctuated on occasion with large folio contracts.[45]

The remaining printers from this period reflect in one way or another the
characteristics displayed by the largest establishments. Felix Kingston and
Humphrey Lownes, both in the middle of successful careers, relied upon
other booksellers for their financing and produced a slate of titles resembling
that of Griffin (Kingston succeeded to the business of his father the printer
John Kingston, a former apprentice of Richard Grafton; Lownes also collaborated
frequently with his brother Matthew and married the daughter of
the wealthy bookseller Thomas Man). Among the mid-sized houses that
published for themselves as well as printed for others, the typical annual
output consisted of much smaller volumes than that of printers who worked
primarily for others. Younger stationers such as John Beale, Nicholas Okes,
and George Purslowe printed small format works of divinity and literature
for numerous booksellers: Beale's title pages include thirty-three different
publishers, Okes's forty-three, and Purslowe's twenty-nine. These printers
also received various Company subsidies to help them, with Beale commissioned
to print Thomas Ashe's 486-sheet common law reference Le Primier
Volume del Promptuarie (STC 840.5) and both Okes and Purslowe receiving
sums from the Company Loan Book.[46] The older printers dominate the bottom
of table 4, indicating that either they had reached the point where their
own more profitable publishing and bookselling ventures replaced printing,
were nearing the end of their careers and withdrawing from the trade, or
were flirting with failure (William White, for example, received £4 in 1611
from the Company Poor Book[47] ).