University of Virginia Library

Tables I-III: General Information

Table I (Register of Copies) lists in nine groups the 175 sets examined

or reported.[16] Of these the last two groups, one of series commencing with the two-volume 1806 facsimile edition, the other of indeterminate sets, are not further considered. Each of the seven earlier groups is headed by several copies, labelled A through P, which appear to be of a typical unmixed sequence and therefore serve to represent the issue in later analyses.[17] The "Q" also listed is a strangely atypical combination, apparently of sheets mixed within certain numbers.[18] Collation has extended, for "A" and "B" first edition sets through 1731,[19] for others not readily accessible through 1734, but for control copy "C" and others immediately available through 1754.[20]

Table II (Order of Woodcuts) records, whenever possible by some mnemonic reference, a succession of eight title-blocks (b-i) employed in original editions from September 1731 through June 1790. Of those re-used, sometimes after a considerable interval, for the reprinting of earlier numbers, the one to be especially noted is the defective wheelbarrow variant (h2), a twice-broken cut occurring in original editions of 1781-1782 before it was diverted to variously labelled 1731-1733 reprints issued, I suspect, about 1786.[21] As sets issued at that late date (N-Q) are all made up of various sheets old and new, certain of the newly prepared material—particularly of gatherings within a number—may have escaped notice. In any event, even if not betrayed by cut (h2), these sheets may be identified by paper of a bluish cast, a variety first used in the Magazine for October 1778.

Table III (Order of Imprints) lists the 24 various readings appearing through February 1760 and occasionally reappearing, though no longer applicable, in the reprinting of earlier numbers. Any such recurrence, however, may be exposed by woodblocks of a kind or state postdating original issue. Thus certain imprints appropriate only for 1731-1732 editions (6B, 7A, 9A) accompany a cut (h2) which, as already noted, does not appear until fifty years later.