Mathew Carey's Proofreaders
by
Rollo G. Silver
Quite naturally, the division of function in the American book trade
evolved gradually and at times imperceptibly. The first hundred and fifty
years witnessed the progression from booksellers to some who were
bookseller-publishers, and then to those who were primarily booksellers and
those who were primarily publishers. As the economy grew in the 1790's
the publisher apparently found that his volume of business no longer
permitted him to do all the work himself. It is during this time, for
instance, that Mathew Carey began to employ certain proofreaders over
extended periods in addition to calling on others for extra help or for
particularly specialized jobs. This was especially necessary when the author
was not available or when new editions were issued. By examining the bills
Carey preserved, it is possible to determine who these proofreaders were,
some of the titles they worked on, and the prices they charged.[1]
The bills discussed in this paper comprise those submitted to Carey
before January 1, 1817, when the firm became Mathew Carey & Son.
From 1785, when he began publishing, to the day he took his son into the
firm, he had published more than 650 editions, exclusive of his many Bibles
and Testaments. It is not possible, of course, to account for the
proofreading of every item, but the number of surviving bills is great
enough to warrant study. They fall into three general classes: bills from his
"regular" proofreaders, bills from proofreaders on special assignments, and
bills from printers which include charges for proofreading.
In length of service and amount of work, Samuel Lewis heads the list
of Carey's proofreaders. Known at various times as "map maker,
draftsman, geographer, writing master,"
[2] he was evidently an accurate,
careful, and
erudite person of some reputation. According to his death notice, "Mr.
Lewis was well known as a Geographer, and the most celebrated Master of
the Pen in the United States;"
[3] today
what little reputation he has rests upon his ability as a mapmaker. Lewis
became associated with Carey about 1794 and continued into 1816, if not
longer, doing a variety of tasks, sometimes on a free-lance basis, sometimes
full-time, and, at certain periods, no work at all. A few abstracts of his
early bills show that Carey originally engaged him to work principally on
geographical material:
1794 |
March |
18 |
Extracting and making list of Plates in Animated Nature
... |
$ 1.00 |
|
|
Correcting Map of North Carolina ... |
.75 |
|
23 |
Selecting and arranging Plates of Animated Nature ... |
2.00 |
|
|
Correcting and examining Map of New York ... |
1.75 |
|
25 |
Small Map of Kentucky ... |
3.00 |
|
|
Small Map of Pennsylvania ... |
3.00 |
|
|
Additions to Map of Tennessee Government ... |
1.50 |
April |
3 |
Small Map of New York ... |
3.00 |
|
11 |
Compiling Tables of Exports ... |
1.50 |
|
17 |
To selecting Plates of Animated Nature ... |
2.25 |
|
|
To copying Tables of Exports ... |
.75 |
|
25 |
To correcting Tables of Monies of various Places ... |
1.50 |
June |
20 |
To drawing Map of British possessions in North America
... |
12.50 |
|
|
To correcting and making additions to Map of Virginia ... |
1.50 |
Dec. |
27 |
To Colouring three dozen St. Domingo ... |
4.80 |
The tabular matter was probably prepared for William Guthrie's
A
New System of Modern Geography (1794-95) and the plates for
Oliver Goldsmith's
An History of the Earth, and Animated
Nature (1795). In the following year, Lewis did a few more odd
jobs.
Some are:
1795 |
Feb. |
7 |
To correcting proof of Map of Virginia ... |
$ .33 |
|
21 |
To correcting proofs of Geography ... |
2.42 |
|
|
To correcting proof of South Carolina ... |
.25 |
March |
13 |
To small Map of Maryland ... |
3.00 |
|
|
To do. Virginia ... |
3.00 |
|
|
To do. Tennessee ... |
3.00 |
|
|
To do. Georgia ... |
3.00 |
Thus did he begin to proofread for Carey. Six years later, his bills cover
a much wider range. Scattered throughout his bills, one comes across:
1801 |
Jan. |
2 |
To correcting 200 sets of Bible ... |
$ 5.25 |
April |
20 |
To making four hundred pens ... |
1.00 |
May |
22 |
To reading three proofs of an Oration ... |
.75 |
|
27 |
To reading thirty-five proofs of Conductor Generalis ... |
8.75 |
June |
5 |
To reading one proof of Columbian Spelling Book ... |
.25 |
|
|
To do. three proofs of quarto Bible ... |
2.00 |
|
|
To making additions to, and correcting set of Maps for the
"American Pocket Atlas" ... |
5.67 |
|
|
To writing proposals for publishing do. ... |
.25 |
|
12 |
To examining Index for Conductor Generalis ... |
.25 |
|
26 |
To double reading proofs Q, R, S, T, U, of Bible ... |
6.67 |
|
|
To reading two proofs, D, E, of American Atlas ... |
.50 |
|
|
To 149 lines of additional matter, in Sheet B, of the American
Pocket Atlas, at 1 dollar per page of 44 lines ... |
3.38 |
Aug. |
14 |
To reading proof D of Apocrypha ... |
.67 |
|
|
To reading two proofs, B, C, of Almanack ... |
.50 |
|
|
To reading two proofs, Z, aA, of Complete Measurer ... |
.50 |
|
|
To reading proof O of American Atlas ... |
.25 |
|
|
To 34 lines of new matter in do. ... |
.75 |
|
|
Time employed in copy Bon mots, &c. for Almanack
... |
.21 |
Other bills show that the printer might be charged for the first proofs of the
Bible; on October 16, 1801, Lewis billed Joseph Charless $36.40 for
reading the first proof of ninety-one sheets although payment for this was
made by Carey. Occasionally, one may get a glimpse of the perennial
troubles between printer and proofreader. The bill for July 24, 1801,
includes this item:
To extra time in attending at Mr. Humphreys', at Mr. Charless' and
at
the store, to collate and examine proofs, and to revise last proofs 2O, 2P,
2Q, of Bible, viz.
Sunday morning |
2 hours} |
besides attending at Mr. Charless' at |
Monday do |
1 do.} |
appointment, at one o'clock, and |
Tuesday do |
3½ do.} |
until ½ past 4, for a proof to be ready— |
Wednesday do |
3 do.} |
they saying it would soon be completed |
|
9½, |
including waiting for Mr. Humphreys. |
In the bill for February 23, 1816, Lewis pointed out that he did not read
three signatures of
Travels in the Interior of Brazil, "in
consequence of hurry, Mr. Griggs read himself — and in a note on
Mm,
said he should read the remainder."
From 1801 to at least 1816, Lewis served as part-time and full-time
assistant to Carey. When he worked full-time, the bills read "To one week's
attendance at Books, reading proofs, &c. $15.00." Part-time bills were
more specific:
Dec. 26, 1801 |
To Time employed this week, at Books, 36 hours |
$ 8.00 |
Jan. 15, 1803 |
To 25 hours employed at Books ... |
4.16 |
March 26, 1804 |
To 21 hours correcting Bibles ... |
7.00 |
April 27, 1804 |
To 18 hours correcting and enlarging Letterpress Copy of
Traveller's Directory ... |
6.00 |
June 15, 1804 |
To time correcting Bibles, 30 hours ... |
10.00 |
|
To reading H, O, S2, AA, whole sheets Bible ... |
2.00 |
June 18, 1804 |
To 5 hours employed making list of American Books ... |
1.67 |
June 15, 1805 |
To time employed at Books, &c. |
|
|
|
hours |
|
|
viz. May |
16 |
3½ |
headings to Ledger |
|
|
18 |
3½} |
|
|
|
} |
Bibles |
|
|
23 |
2½} |
|
June |
1 |
4½ |
Ledger |
|
|
12 |
3} |
|
|
|
} |
list of Books |
|
|
15 |
9} |
|
|
|
26 hours ... |
$ 8.67 |
Feb. 10, 12, 1807 |
To 4 hours, making entries in Day Book and Journal ... |
1.00 |
The phrase "time employed at Books" is, therefore, so ambiguous that
the price per hour varied greatly. Proofreading, however, was usually noted
separately in bills for part-time work:
Jan. 15, 1803 |
To 25 hours employed at Books ... |
$ 4.16 |
|
reading proofs Q, R, S of Parent's Friend ... |
.75 |
|
do. do. D, E of Vade Mecum ... |
.50 |
Or, to cite another example:
Aug. 10, 1805 |
To 13 hours employed at Books ... |
$ 3.25 |
|
reading G, H, Clerk's Assistant ... |
.50 |
|
do. I American Preceptor ... |
.25 |
|
do. B, C, D, E, and 4F, Doway Bible ... |
3.33 |
As publisher, Carey sometimes employed more than one printer for
a book. The following bill, possessing bibliographical as well as historical
interest, exemplifies the publisher's proofreader at work:
Aug. 27, 1812 |
To reading 14 Sig. printed by Dickinson of Weems's Life of
Washington ... |
$ 3.50 |
|
Reading 2 do. -- printed by Aitken (O. P.) ... |
.50 |
Throughout the period he read for Carey, Lewis maintained a rather
stable price scale. Most of the proofreading jobs were billed at twenty-five
cents per sheet; the Bible cost sixty-seven cents with the price doubled for
a "double reading." As would be expected in so many documents,
exceptions to these prices appear from time to time. Among them, two may
be noted: in 1805, Lewis charged fifty cents a sheet for a Testament "as per
agreement" and in 1816 he charged thirty-one and a quarter cents each for
the proofs of Travels in the Interior of Brazil.
Carey's other principal proofreader was Daniel Humphreys, known
today for the books and newspapers he printed and published. But his
contemporary reputation included an additional occupation: in 1812,
William McCulloch, writing to Isaiah Thomas, called him "the correct
proof reader."[4] His earliest bills in
the Mathew Carey Papers bear the date of 1801 and all of them refer to
reading or revising Bible proof. In that one year, he corrected more than
275 sheets at a charge of five shillings each for reading and one shilling ten
and a half pence for revision.[5] Two
years later, he continued on Bible proof at the same
rate until September when what must have been a special job came along:
1803 |
|
|
£ |
s
|
d
|
Sept. |
26 |
To reading 23 sheets Old Testament A to Z, &c.mmat; 10s
... |
11 |
10 |
... |
|
|
To do. 19 do. Apocrypha 2X to 3Q, &c.mmat; 5s
... |
4 |
15 |
... |
Nov. |
3 |
To reading 43 sheets in Old Testament, &c.mmat; 10s
... |
21 |
10 |
... |
|
|
To. do. 19 do. in Apocrypha, &c.mmat; 5s ... |
4 |
15 |
... |
|
|
To do. 27 do. in New Testament ... |
6 |
15 |
... |
|
|
To do. 4 do. in Index ... |
1 |
... |
... |
|
|
To second reading one half of above ... |
7 |
10 |
... |
More than likely this is the proof of Carey's "standing" Bible of 1804,
though the reason for the double charge on the Old Testament is not clear.
It may have been for a double reading.
In 1803, Humphreys also read proof for the edition of Pennsylvania
laws, printed for Carey by John Bioren, and the cost of this, $99.26,
appears on Bioren's bill to Carey. During the following eight years, Carey
gave Humphreys a variety of texts, some of which were:
1806 |
Aug. |
15 |
To reading 9 proofs Vade Mecum ... |
$ 2.70 |
|
|
To do. 140 do. Walker's Dictionary ... |
70.00 |
Sept. |
20 |
To do. 26 do. Ferg. Mechanics, vol. 1 ... |
6.50 |
|
|
To do. 38 do. do. vol. 2 ... |
9.50 |
1807 |
Jan. |
15 |
To reading 16 proofs Beattie's Elements ... |
4.80 |
|
|
To do. 13 do. Black's Lectures, vol. 1 ... |
3.25 |
|
|
To do. 55 do. vol. 2 ... |
13.75 |
|
|
To. do. 59 do. vol. 3 ... |
14.75 |
Feb. |
15 |
To making Index for do. ... |
5.00 |
Dec. |
15 |
To reading 14 proofs Goldsmith's History ... |
4.20 |
|
|
To do. 69 do. Roman Antiquities ... |
20.70 |
1808 |
Sept. |
20 |
To reading 17 proofs Concordance ... |
12.75 |
|
|
To do. 7 do. Psalms ... |
3.50 |
|
|
To do. 2 do. Astronomy ... |
.50 |
|
|
To do. 21 do. Tacitus ... |
10.50 |
|
|
To marking References for do. ... |
1.00 |
1809 |
May |
1 |
To reading 7 proofs Gulliver's Travels, &c.mmat; 52 cts. ... |
3.64 |
|
|
To do. 19 do. Washington's Life, &c.mmat; 28 cts. ... |
5.32 |
|
|
To do. 4 do. Ladies Library, &c.mmat; 63 cts. ... |
2.52 |
July |
15 |
To 4 proofs Charlotte Temple, &c.mmat; 73 cts. ... |
2.92 |
Dec. |
30 |
To 10 do. Letter Writer, &c.mmat; 33 cts. ... |
3.30 |
About 1808, the charges became more precise and extended over a wider
range. In 1811, Humphreys' lowest price seems to have been twenty-five
cents a sheet for Breslaw's
Last Legacy; his highest ninety
cents
for Moore's
Fables for the Ladies; various other proofs were
read at odd prices in between.
Of Carey's other proofreaders, only one, James Hardie, has been
discussed in recent literature.[6]
Hardie's career, pathetic though it be, did produce some useful publications
and his name has not been forgotten. But one searches in vain for
information about four of Carey's proofreaders. Who was the
"Frans.
Wright" who billed Carey in 1792 and 1793? The charges, one shilling
three pence per signature, covered corrections for such works as Blair's
Lectures on Rhetorick and Belles Lettres,
Crèvecoeur's
Letters from an American Farmer, and O'Keeffe's
Wild
Oats. A Francis Wright appears in the Philadelphia directories for
1794, 1795, and 1796, listed in 1795 as a carter. It might be he. It could
not, however, be the Frances Wright whose work Carey later
published for she was not born until 1795. Nor does any information appear
to be available about John Edington who, in May and June, 1795, received
one pound four
shillings for correcting eight proof sheets of Goldsmith's History of
the Earth. John Lithgow's activities, at least, show some progress.
According to the Philadelphia directories, he was a hosier in 1795 and
1796, a shopkeeper in 1800, and an "accomptant" from 1802 to 1804. His
bill to Carey, dated 1800, is printed verbatim:
about two months ago I told you that you owed me for one week
and one day which was chiefly for the first Volume history of Greece, some
proofs reading, and arranging Cuts for small Books. all that I had done for
you |
for about a month before ... |
8.00 |
Since I have read 20 proofs ¼ per ... |
5.00 |
half a Day at the library ... |
.50 |
|
_____ |
|
13.50 |
Another obscure person, John M. Robinson, billed Carey on September 23,
1809, for "reading proof ½ of 5 days, 128 pages quarto Bible
$4.16."
Whether these individuals possessed the background and skill required
cannot now be determined, but other proofreaders employed by Carey were
certainly well educated. Some were teachers, others ministers. Those
perennially low-paid scholars most likely found proofreading rather
agreeable as part-time work and Carey, in turn, could call on their talents
whenever needed. Jesse Waterman was one such person, listed in the
Philadelphia directories as schoolmaster and "teacher of the French and
English languages" from 1791 to 1829.[7] His bill, submitted in 1796, shows
that he
was given appropriate work:
|
|
£ |
s
|
d
|
For correcting |
10 Sheets of Perrins french Grammar &c.mmat; 2/6 |
1 |
5 |
... |
|
18 Goldsmiths animated nature 2/6 ... |
2 |
5 |
... |
|
32 do. Guthries Geography 2/6 ... |
4 |
... |
... |
|
8 do. of Edwards affections &c.mmat; 2/6 ... |
1 |
... |
... |
|
15 do. Jefferson's Notes &c.mmat; 2/6 ... |
1 |
17 |
6 |
Eleven years later, when Carey planned to issue a revised edition of
Fenelon's
Adventures of Telemachus in French and English,
he
turned to his son's tutor, Lewis C. Vallon, who had been French Teacher
at the University of Pennsylvania in 1795.
[8] Vallon's bills consequently show
his
combined efforts:
Feb. 7, 1807: |
To 4 months French Tuition of his Son, at $12 a quarter, due the
5th inst. ... |
$16.00 |
To fire wood, quills and ink for said time ... |
1.33 |
To altering the proofs of the 1st Vol. of
Telemachus
... |
9.00 |
1807: |
To 1 quarter French Schooling of his Son, due May the
5th
... |
12.00 |
To fire wood quills & ink ... |
1.00 |
To correcting 8 books, adventures of Telemachus ... |
6.00 |
June 8, 1807: |
To 1 month French tuition of his Son, due the 5th
inst.
... |
4.12½ |
To correcting the last 4 books of the adventures of
Telemachus |
3.00 |
Vallon must have done a satisfactory job; in December of the following
year, he corrected some proofs of Lhomond's
Élémens
de la
Grammaire Françoise, charging four dollars. Thus Waterman
and
Vallon, both proficient in languages, could be employed on specialized
jobs. Another
teacher, Edward Farris, did occasional reading in 1802.
[9] Four of his bills fail to specify the
texts
he corrected at five shillings a sheet, but a fifth refers to twenty-three sheets
of Bible and Testament at the same rate. In the sixth bill, the text is again
unspecified and the charge is four dollars for four sheets.
The frequent references to Bible proofs indicate the great care
exercised in the publication of Carey's editions. His autobiography tells
about the 1801 quarto:
I had eighteen various editions to collate in the reading of the proof
sheets, — four London, three Cambridge, three Oxford, six
Edinburgh,
and two American, — those of Isaac Collins and Isaiah Thomas,
—
and found a most extraordinary number of discrepancies, some of which are
incredible.
[10]
Along with Lewis and Humphreys, the Rev. William Marshall, minister of
the Scots' Presbyterian Church, also read proof of an 1801 Bible.
[11] Because two Bibles were issued in
that
year, a quarto as well as a duodecimo, it is not possible to assign the bills
to the editions. Marshall corrected more than a hundred sheets at the same
price per sheet paid Humphreys — five shillings; Lewis received
sixty-seven cents.
As the volume of the publishing business increased after the turn of
the century, proofreading gradually became an established occupation.
William Christie, for example, is listed in some of the Philadelphia
directories of the second decade as "translator and corrector of the
press."[12] During the first decade, he
preached Unitarianism, published some sermons, and also, at times, worked
on proof for Carey in 1807, 1808, and 1809. One of his bills, June 10,
1807, refers to correcting nine sheets of Telemachus in French and English
at fifty cents per sheet. Vallon, evidently, was not the only competent
person to read the text even though his name is on the title page as reviser
and corrector of the edition. This instance of distributing the sheets of one
work among readers is, of course, not unique. In August, 1804, both Lewis
and Humphreys read sheets of the Laws of the United States;
two years later, both submitted bills for correcting
sheets of Ferguson's book on mechanics. Unfortunately, Humphreys did not
specify the
signatures he read, precluding verification of whether both read the same
or different sheets. One may assume that, with few exceptions such as the
Bible, sheets were given to the reader who could return them soonest.
Then, as now, the publisher was anxious to see the book completed.
In his bills, Christie was usually careful enough to note the imposition
as well as the specific pages, as in these:
[c. 1807] |
For reading, and correcting for the press, as follows, viz. |
The Letters of Junius, from p. 49 to the end inclusive, with the
Notes, Index and Contents p. 273, 12mo is 11⅓ sheets
at 50 cents
per sheet ... |
$ 5.66 |
Dodsley's select Fables &c. 240 p. 12mo. is
10 sheets, at
50 cents per sheet ... |
5.00 |
Abridgment of Christian Doctrine for the Use of the Catholic
Church &c. 48 p. 24to. is 1 sheet ... |
.50 |
For correcting for the press Adam's Roman Antiquities, a work
consisting of 632 pages 8vo. including preface contents &c. is 39½
sheets at 75 cents per sheet ... |
29.62½ |
Carey also gave Christie some foreign language jobs. Christie corrected
some of the sheets of Lhomond's French grammar (as did Vallon) for one
dollar per sheet and he corrected twenty-one sheets of Horace in Latin and
English at the same price. But when, in 1809, he billed Carey for sheets of
the School Bible, the price was one dollar and twenty-five cents.
A few bills in the Carey Papers show that an editor of a work
sometimes included proofreading as part of the job. In 1813, Thomas Clark
edited Caesar for a group of publishers. Carey took one-fourth of the
edition and Clark's bill of April 12 is for one-fourth of $152.00, "being the
amount of editing & proofreading of Caesar." For a cooperative
edition
of Horace, Clark's bill of Dec. 8, 1813, reads: "For revising; & for
the
collecation of the Delphini edition of Horace, with the original one of Paris,
& with other [sic] of approved accuracy; —
—— Like
wise for Proof reading of the same —— a 3/20th part of the
whole
amount $200." In another joint publishing venture, the 1810 edition of
Cornelius Nepos, the bill came from the printer. Nevertheless, Lydia R.
Bailey added a proofreading charge of $3.88 to her bill for printing.
Finally, it must be noted that a proofreading charge also appears on
a few printers' bills for books which Carey alone published. This may be
seen in James Carey's bill of August, 1794, where proofreading
six sheets of Bunyan's
Holy War was billed at $4.33 and
proofreading 2½ sheets of Bunyan's
Divine Emblems cost
$1.66. It can also be seen in Abel Dickinson's bill of January, 1809, where
he included Christie's fee for reading part of the seventh edition of
Mary Findley. But such occurrences are so rare that one
wonders whether there were some special circumstances which are not
noted on the bills.
As large as the Carey archive is, it still leaves many questions
unanswered. The rather unsystematic bookkeeping of the period plus the
lack of detail in many items cause puzzlement if not confusion. Yet in this
group of bills, the beginnings of work specialization in American publishing
can be observed. In the 1790's and early 1800's, no American firm was
large enough to support a full-time publishing staff. But bigness was
approaching, and proofreading became, during this period, a part-time
occupation.
Notes