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notes
See, for example, Wilbur L. Cross, The History of Henry Fielding (1918), I, 381—hereafter cited as "Cross"—and J. P. de Castro, "The Printing of Fielding's Works," The Library, I (1921), 259—hereafter cited as "de Castro." (In this paper I am neglecting the two volume reprint of the Miscellanies published in Dublin in 1743.)
First noticed and cited by Henry Knight Miller, Jr. in his unpublished doctoral dissertation "Fielding's Miscellanies," (Princeton University, 1953), Introduction, p. 7—hereafter cited as "Miller."
Quoted by John Edwin Wells, "Fielding's Miscellanies," MLR, XIII (1918), 481—hereafter cited as "Wells."
The Daily Advertiser does not contain the "This Day published" notice of the Miscellanies until the next day, Friday, April 8, but there is no reason to doubt the notices of the other newspapers.
Once again the Daily Advertiser did not publish this announcement until the following day, Wednesday, April 27.
Wells (p. 482) states that "I have two copies of the Second Edition. One copy contains the list; the other omits it." I have not seen such a copy.
I am accepting William B. Todd's definitions of edition, impression, and state. See his "Recurrent Printing," SB, XII (1958), 191.
I am grateful to William B. Todd for several comments plus descriptions of the three copies of volume I, first state in the University of Texas Library.
Strahan's ledgers show that he did not always engage in such practices — for example, he sometimes listed discounts given for type that was still standing when a second edition was called for. Throughout his career, however, he occasionally reverted to such dishonest proceedings. In 1775, for example, he charged full price for setting the type of the second edition of Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland when over twenty per cent of the second-edition sheets had been printed with the first edition.
One notable example is Fielding's good friend, Ralph Allen. See Pope's letter to Allen, dated 12 April, 1743: The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. George Sherburn (1956), IV, 452. Probably some of Allen's £20 was spent on royal-paper copies.
Miller suggests that Henry Woodfall the elder, who printed the first two editions of Joseph Andrews and the proposals for the Miscellanies, is a likely possibility.
K.I.D. Maslen, "Works from the Bowyer Press (1713-65): A Supplement to John Nichols," unpublished B.Litt. thesis (University of Oxford, 1952), p. 104, as cited by Miller, Introduction, p. 8.
The Princeton University coarse-paper copy of the first state is loosely bound and its spine is broken in several places. Fortunately, this enabled me to determine the conjugacy of leaves with certainty.
When Strahan printed Johnson's Journey in 1775, for example, the normal rate for printing 2000 copies was approximately three sheets per week. (See William B. Todd, "The Printing of Johnson's Journey [1775]," SB, VI [1954], 247-254.) Thus, it does not seem impossible to print slightly better than five sheets per week when making only 1250 copies.
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